


Sinners (Come Gather 'Round)

by trashmovthtoziers



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Boys In Love, Catholic School, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Murder Mystery, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Content, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2019-11-05 02:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17909969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmovthtoziers/pseuds/trashmovthtoziers
Summary: Richie's been stuck at Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Preparatory School (Xavier, for short) for nearly his entire life and he wants out. The nuns and the Jesuits have it out for him, his grades are slipping, and all he wants is his freaking Walkman. When two students at Xavier and its sister school, Saint Catherine, randomly go missing, a series of fucked-up events lead to the most interesting year yet.





	1. A Faint Smell of Danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so you've probably heard that saying 'write what you know'...
> 
> well, this is kinda what I know. not exactly. like these Losers, I was forced into a Catholic school for seven years of my life and it was absolute hell, but I came out of it knowing a few things. I've had plenty of religious exposure, I suppose. I hope this appeals to your fancy.
> 
> this is also very very very very very loosely inspired by Running up that hill by speakslow. oh, and Lady Bird. this takes place in 1993.

With his hands clasped and his fingers locked, Richie knelt. Unconsciously, he let his eyelids flutter closed. This was a wonderful time for him to rest them— when he was supposed to be praying. He wanted to do the right thing and pray during church like the other boys did, but he could never clear his mind enough to focus on it and really mean it. He could say a million Hail Marys and a million Our Fathers, but it would be for nothing if he didn't put his heart into them.   
  
The stained glass mural of Virgin Mary and Archangel Gabriel (The Annunciation, it was called) behind the altar filtered reds and greens and blues around the chapel. Its beams put little halos of sunlight onto everyone knelt there, setting their hair aglow. It was a magnificently beautiful place, the chapel was. It was old as the Bible itself, it seemed, and had this distinct smell of damp wood, cheap perfume, and old incense.  
  
All around him were unintelligibly whispered prayers and apologies, pleads for forgiveness from God. Richie let his mind wander to other things like how badly his knees hurt from all this kneeling.  
  
The cheap cushion on the old wooden kneeler dug into his knees, sure to leave cross-patterned imprints on his skin. He felt that he should be used to this pain by now seeing as he was corralled into here along with the other boys of Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Preparatory School (more commonly known as simply ‘Xavier’— the name was too damn long) every morning for the last six years to sit through the eight o’clock Mass service. Still, he had to practically force himself to not lean his ass back onto the bench behind him.   
  
He was sure that nearly everyone in the church was thinking (at least distantly) the same thing. For him, however, the thought was overpowering. _Damn kneelers._  
  
The altar chimed three times and he was torn from his thoughts. His eyes shot open and, after a moment for them to adjust to the dim light of the church, settled upon the priest behind the altar, his arms outstretched in offering. This was the ‘highest’ point of the Mass, according to the nuns and Jesuits that taught his Religion class. Still, Richie’s mind wandered to other things. He looked over and saw that Eddie was still knelt beside him. He was absently rubbing his nose, otherwise focused on the priest as he proclaimed Jesus’ words during The Last Supper.   
  
As softly as he could possibly manage (which wasn’t very soft at all), he lent discreetly toward Eddie and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Hey, Eds. How’re your knees?”  
  
Eddie looked sideways at him from over his clasped hands, blinking slowly. In a whisper of a much more calculated volume, he murmured back, “They hurt like they always do. Now shut up before Meredith catches us.” And he turned back to Father Thomas, hoping that no one had seen them talking. 

Xavier had both nuns and Jesuits, a heavy precaution. Due to financial reasons, the school was almost criminally understaffed, so most doubled as teachers or coaches or even, in some cases, lunch ladies. The school was practically begging for volunteers, but the search was fruitless. No one wanted to work with a bunch of rowdy teenagers for no pay, and no one wanted to suffer through the commute. New England was breathtaking, particularly during the fall months, but it was scarcely populated. The nearest town was at least forty miles away— the nearest housing development a hard thirty. No one came to Xavier unless they had to.  
  
Not _all_ of the nuns were mean, ruler-wielding old bats, but most of them were. Out of twelve nuns, ten of them hated Richie. The other two were indifferent on the matter. The mean ones, however, had had this impassioned vendetta against Richie since the moment that he walked through the door, it seemed, and had made it their life’s work (other than serving God) to make sure that he never won when facing punishment.  
  
Sister Meredith, the bat Eddie had mentioned, was at the head of that movement. She was knelt several rows behind them, her eyes narrowed. She had the ears of a  hawk. Mike had once said that he was sure that she had hearing-aids concealed underneath her habit veil thingy. Richie wouldn’t have been surprised. You see, she despised him with the burning passion of a thousand suns and would do anything to have him expelled from Xavier. So far, she hadn’t been successful. Nuns weren’t supposed to hate anything, right? Except evil, maybe.  
  
More of the Jesuits were nice, he supposed. Unlike the nuns, they didn’t have a Richie Tozier Hate Club (at least one that he was aware of). To put it into perspective, out of fifteen Jesuits, eleven hated him. This year, he had more Jesuit teachers that he did nuns, and for that he was thankful. Xavier’s sister school, Saint Catherine’s, was understaffed too, so the nuns taught more classes there than at Xavier. That hadn’t been the case about ten years prior, though, when this one kid and this nun got caught fucking in the sanctuary. That was the height of Xavier-Catherine drama.  
  
Saint Catherine’s was down the road a ways. It was probably about 5 miles as the crow flies. A sleek black car closely resembling a hearse (maybe it even _was_ a hearse, he didn’t know) traveled from school-to-school, transporting the nuns and Jesuits. It went down the dirt road of which connected the schools, cut directly through the thick woods. The five-mile distance between the schools was most likely intentional for… explicit reasons.  
  
There were two chapels as well, one connected to Xavier, and the other connected to Saint Catherine’s. Each morning after the boys’ service, Father Thomas, Father Ronald, some of the Jesuits, and some of the nuns would ride in that hearse down the road to attend the 9:30 service with the girls of Saint Catherine’s. If, ten years ago, that one kid and that nun hadn’t been caught fucking, none of these crazy precautions would’ve been in place. Richie had heard from an alumnus that the schools used to work together in harmony and that, at one point, they had even been co-Ed. He had also heard that there had once been a bus used to carry students from one school to the other. Most boys at Xavier would kill to see the girls every once and a while, those horny bastards.  
  
Richie had a friend that went to Saint Catherine’s from his hometown, Beverly Marsh. He didn’t see her too often because five miles wasn’t a distance he was willing to walk every damn day, but, occasionally, they would sneak out under the cover of night (an art of which Richie had almost perfected), meet at their ‘spot’ in the woods between both schools, and smoke. Smoking wasn’t forbidden or anything, it was just that Bev always had the best, sweetest cigarettes.  
  
An idle shifting and rustling indicated that they were finally allowed to stand. Richie shot to his feet, rubbing his knees as he went. He was tempted to hike up his pant leg to see if his knees had bruised, but knew he’d be reprimanded for that too. Eddie pushed the kneeler underneath the pew in front of them and stood alongside Richie.  
  
The Mass droned on and on.  
  
Then, out of the blue, Richie was struck with an idea. It was insane (like most of his ideas were), but it had the potential to work both perfectly and smoothly and that was enough for him to deem it useful.  
  
He had seen numerous people faint during Mass before. The whole atmosphere of the chapel called for light-headedness. It was so stuffy in there that it reached the point where people had trouble breathing, and, on top of that, it perpetually smelt of incense smoke. On the rare occasions of which the priest lit incense during the Mass, Eddie and the other kids with asthma were allowed to skip. _Lucky bastards._ On second thought, the luckiest bastard out there was Stan Uris, who was Jewish, and legally allowed to skip the Mass every damn morning.  
  
To be honest, Richie didn’t _hate_ Mass. He just thought of it as stifling and monotonous and, well, unchanging. He hated routine, that’s what. Not Mass in itself. He hated predictability, and he hated consistency. He knew the differences between the liturgical seasons and how that effected and changed the Mass, but it wasn’t drastic enough. He wished that it was different every time, but it wasn’t. That’s the way it was.  
  
He turned to Eddie once more as inconspicuously as he could and whispered, “You think if I fake-faint I’ll be able to miss the rest of Mass?” He tilted his head in such a way that the lenses of his specs glinted in the refined sunlight.  
  
His voice had taken on that notorious tone he used whenever he was planning something unmistakably devious. Eddie knew that that tone was usually associated with a complacent smirk. He looked at Richie out of the corner of his eyes and saw that he was, in fact, smirking as what was expected. Eddie had half a mind to simply not answer him, but his mouth got the best of him. “You probably could, but if you do it, Richie, I swear—” He didn’t have the chance to finish. _Goddammit._  
  
Richie winked at Eddie in an almost comical, cinematic way before he went on to execute his ill-considered plan. He cleared his face of any and all emotion, made his body to go limp, and fell backward onto the bench like an unsupported rag-doll. It was actually pretty convincing, to be completely honest. The sharp sound of him hitting the back of the wooden pew echoed throughout the church and, like a wave of dominoes, about a hundred heads turned to see what had happened. Father Thomas kept on singing obliviously in his broken voice as if nothing had happened. Sister Meredith blanched.  
  
Bill Denbrough, who was on Richie’s other side and, in turn, unaware of his stupid plan, was instantly concerned. He must have assumed that the worst had happened to Richie and subsequently went into full-on panic mode. He dropped down beside Richie and started to shake his shoulders. Richie’s head lolled and, for a moment, Eddie was sure that he would break character. He didn’t. He had somehow managed to keep his eyes closed despite the fact that he was being shaken quite desperately.  “Ruh-Richie? Are you all ruh-right? Cuh-Can you hear me?” Bill’s stutter only surfaced when he was scared.  
  
Richie remained unresponsive.  
  
Brother Josiah was making his way down the aisle, stepping over feet and around legs. He was one of the nicer Jesuits— kind of like a grandfather of some sorts. Richie had been in his class several years back and he remembered that he used to smuggle in cookies from the church functions for the kids. He had a medical limp from an accident on a hiking sabbatical and was much older than the other ‘brothers’ at school. It would take Old Joe (as the students called him) some time to maneuver his way down the aisle and make it to Richie.  
  
Eddie decided that at that moment he would have to go along with this whole charade for Richie’s damn sake. If someone found out that he had faked this whole thing, there would be several detentions in the future for him due to his ‘sinful conduct’ (an equivalent for the word ‘misbehavior’ in Catholic school). There was, as there always is, the potential that his punishment could be worse— a diocese referral. The threat was menacing.  
  
Richie owed him one.  
  
He hunkered down beside Richie and cranked up the dramatics. “Richie?” he demanded, whisper-shouting all the while. “Can you hear us? Richie?” Just to piss Richie off, Eddie assisted Bill in periodically shaking Richie’s other shoulder, though harsher.  
  
After some time, Old Joe made it to them safe and sound. He looked rather tired from having limped all the way over here, breathing heavily, but he kept his sophisticated composure. He put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder either to balance himself or to comfort Eddie, who, to him, looked to be nearing complete delirium. “What happened to Tozier?” he demanded in his thick Boston accent.  
  
Eddie didn’t look up at him in risk of breaking character, for he knew that one look at Old Joe would have him spilling the truth. “I-I don’t know,” he managed. He focused on Richie’s face to keep himself grounded, feeling comforted in his telling lies as he traced Richie’s freckles. “I just looked over and he was on the ground. He told me earlier that he had a headache, so he probably just fainted, but… I-I…”  
  
The Mass went on regardless. Some students sat in pews on the other side of the chapel turned back Father Thomas and ‘focused’ on him once more, coming to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be able to see or hear what was going on.  
  
“I understand, son,” Old Joe said in a soft, kind voice. He really was like a grandfather-figure to the kids at Xavier. “I think that—“  
  
Just then, Richie seemed to come to. His acting was weirdly believable to the point where Eddie was sure that if Richie hadn’t told him of his entire plan, he would be letting out a sigh of utter relief as he blearily and confusedly opened his eyes. “Wha…?” he croaked out almost indistinctly.  
  
“Tozier, are you all right? Can you stand?” Old Joe wasn’t able to kneel down on the wooden floor beside Richie because of his leg, but his look of unmistakable concern was enough to show his compassion.  
  
Richie said nothing for a moment, blinking slowly. Then, he went on intelligently, “What…?”  
  
“Are you all right?” Joe repeated himself, this time more clearly. The knit between his brows deepened considerably.  
  
“Uh, I…” Richie fumbled hazily. He was scared that if he said that he indeed doing all right Old Joe would make him sit through the rest of Mass. So instead, he asked, “Did I faint?”  
  
Old Joe nodded once. He was to-the-point, but not in an unkind way. “Now can you stand?”  
  
Once again, Richie was conflicted. There was nothing left to stall with without being entirely too suspicious, he supposed, so he mumbled obediently, “I think so…” and tried to pull himself to his feet, making sure to do so shakily and uncertainly. He grabbed onto Bill’s arm to stabilize himself, unnecessarily trying to jack-up the performance as best as he could. Bill was looking at him concernedly, which went to show that his plan was working smoothly.  
  
Brother Joe examined Richie wordlessly for a moment, visible wheels and cogs turning in his head. Richie was on the edge of his seat, doing his best not to show it. “Bill, Eddie. Take him down to the matron and see to it that’s he’s all right.”  
  
Both Eddie and Bill nodded obediently, a curt bob of their heads. Eddie remained expressionless as he grabbed onto Richie’s other arm and led him down the aisle, Bill on his other side. Richie lent onto them both heavily, so much so that they were eventually forced to put an arm around him in order keep him stable. As they stumbled down the aisle, curious heads turned to follow them. Ben and Mike were among them, looking worried. They looked like ready to jump out of their seats and help, but knew deep down that they’d be punished for it.  
  
The organ blared a loud, melancholy tune. A rustling sound indicated that it was time for another song. Hymnals were taken out of the pews and roughly flipped through to find the designated page. Richie and his entourage made it to the door. When it slammed closed behind them and when Richie was absolutely positive that there was no one else around, he fell out of their support, stumbling, laughing madly. “That was priceless!” he managed, short of breath, doubled over with a stitch in his side.  
  
They stood in a long corridor with high, towering ceilings and cold concrete floors. Paintings of bible scenes, old photographs of priests and nuns and altar servers, crucifixes, and replicas of ancient biblical artifacts lined the walls, eerily and poorly lit by the brass green banker lamps of which were mounted above them.  
  
Eddie looked positively mutinous. Underneath it all, however, he was rather impressed with Richie for having managed to pull this off. “No, it wasn’t!” he shouted back instead. “That was the _stupidest_ thing I’ve ever seen!”  
  
Later than Bill would’ve liked to admit, realization dawned and he started to see what had happened. Brows furrowed, he addressed Richie with an accusatory finger. “That whole thing was fake?”  
  
Eddie had his arms crossed over his chest, an appraising look on his tainted-pink face. Tilting his head to the side, he said, “As fake as Ben’s mom’s tits.”  
  
This wise-crack was met with Richie’s raucous peal of laughter. “A Good One! A _Great_ One!” He lifted his hand up for Eddie to high-five, but the attempt was fruitless. Eddie merely looked at it, brows raised.  
  
Bill dragged Richie’s arm back down, rolling his eyes. “I think we should focus on the fact that you faked that whole damn thing! Why the hell would you do that?”  
  
“I’ve always wanted to see what would happen. Now I know,” Richie admitted with a lopsided, nonchalant shrug. “Also, my knees hurt like hell and I didn’t feel like kneeling again.” He blinked innocently behind his thick lenses.  
  
“ _Everyone’s_ knees hurt like hell, dumbass!” Eddie shot back, disbelieving.  
  
“Even Old Joe kneels and he has a bum leg.” Bill fixed his dark blue uniform tie, making sure it was still tucked in. “You’ve really got no excuse, Rich.”  
  
“I wanted to get out of Mass, all right?” Richie admitted, looking briefly down at his loafers. “But I helped you guys, too. You should be thanking me for my wonderful, completely believable acting. I mean, even Bill believed me.”  
  
“I’ll have to admit that it did look pretty real. Have you practiced that?" Bill started walking down the corridor as if nothing had happened. Eddie scoffed. Richie came around and stood in between them in case he had to pretend to look sick again. He was saving his acting ability for when he had to convince the matron that he was sick enough to miss his classes. It more than likely wasn’t going to work, but at least she couldn’t send him back to Mass.  
  
“Nope. ’Twas natural talent.”  
  
Eddie looked sidelong at Richie. “The only ‘natural talent’ you have is being intolerably obnoxious."  
  
Richie flashed Eddie a mocking, exaggerated smile. He then went on to obnoxiously quote Shakespeare as he usually did in the worst of times. Clutching his chest dramatically, he monologued, “‘Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.’” He’d been doing that since his Grade 9 drama class had been forced to memorize parts of Romeo and Juliet. He hadn’t been Romeo, of course. He was only in that drama class because the girls from Saint Catherine’s shared it with Xavier and Bev Marsh happened to be in it.  
  
“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie said, though with not nearly as much conviction as he had originally intended. He looked down at his saddle shoes, scowling.  
  
Not knowing how to read a room, Richie went on with another quote, this one with a different opinion. “‘Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books—‘”  
  
Bill, who was able to not only read a room but fully comprehend it, cut him off with a back-handed smack to the head and a warning look.  
  
After an ‘ow!’ and an exasperated glare for Bill, Richie held his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. I’m _sorry_. I just figured you guys would be proud of me for having memorized all that shit Romeo said.”  
  
“We’re not proud. We’re alarmed,” Bill said through a crooked grin.  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure Johnny Harrowitz stole that Romeo role _right_ out of your fingers.”  
  
“You were robbed!” Bill held up his index finger as if suddenly struck with an amazing thought.    
  
“Cheated!” Eddie added with a smirk.  
  
“Bamboozled!”  
  
“Hoodwinked!”  
  
“Fuck off!” Richie shouted, sending the other two into a fit of laughter. “After my performance today, you should know that I would’ve been an amazing lead!”  
  
“But not an amazing Romeo,” Bill pointed out. “Don’t ya think, Eddie, that Richie would’ve made a better Juliet?”  
  
Eddie shrugged. “That’s a compliment, believe it or not. I’d bet you weren’t paying attention in Grade 9 English.”  
  
Bill crossed his arms. “I was _too_ paying attention!” he whined.  
  
In his breathy, Romeo-esc Voice, Richie said, “‘Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might _touch that cheek_!’” Eddie and Bill cracked up.  
  
“TOZIER!”  
  
The three boys froze, still as statues. Then, in one simultaneous motion, Bill and Eddie reached for Richie’s middle and made to support him like they had back in the chapel. Richie slumped against them both, unintentionally favoring Bill with his scant weight.  
  
Sister Meredith stormed over to them in a flurry, her face turning a not-so-lovely shade of mauve. The veil of her habit flared out behind her the cape of an evil villain. “What are you doing, laughing and joking around? Aren’t you supposed to be sick?” she demanded shrilly.  
  
Richie could only blink.  
  
“Huh-He is sick, ma’am. He fainted,” Bill said with conviction. His stutter reared its ugly head as it usually did when he felt anxious.  
  
Meredith ignored him. “Shouldn’t you boys be at the matron’s by now?"  
  
“We’re on our way there now…” Eddie said, all sickly-sweet and cherub-faced. “And we could’ve been there by now if you hadn’t stopped us.” Bill snorted, realized what he had done, and tried to play it off as an unusual cough. It went unnoticed.  
  
“I can do whatever I want,” she said, which was a total lie seeing as she was a _nun_. “And I know for a fact that Tozier’s not really sick. What do you have say for yourself, you sinner?” ‘Sinner’ was Sister Meredith’s automatic knee-jerk insult she used when it came to punishing someone. According to her, anyone who wasn’t saintlike was considered a filthy, hell-bound sinner. It’s ironic seeing as she was probably the furthest thing from saintlike you could find out of Xavier-Catherine’s selection of nuns.  
  
Richie had half a mind to faint again, but knew that it wouldn’t work. She had caught him, sure, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to avoid punishment for it. If this case made it to the New England Diocese School Board, he could be kicked out of school for ‘sinful conduct’ and ‘strong atheistic tendencies’. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sister M. Did you not see me faint? I think the fumes were getting to my head. I mean, I must tell you that I have a killer headache right now and you stopping us isn’t necessarily helping it when I’m—”  
  
“Oh, I _saw_ you all right. You whispered to Kaspbrak then faked fainting,” Meredith said, looking a bit smug herself for having supposedly caught him red-handed.  
  
Eddie looked over Richie, seeing that his expression remained indifferent. He didn’t look at all concerned with Meredith’s knowledge about what had really happened. After a moment, Eddie turned to Sister M. and explained, as clearly and as calmly as he could, “Richie told me that his head hurt and I told him to hold it out until the end of Mass.”  
  
Meredith remained unbothered. She crossed her arms. “So why was he smiling?”  
  
Eddie opened his mouth with some bullshit excuse, but Richie spoke over him with a bullshit-tier one, speaking the first plausible and possible thing that came to his mind, “I said something inappropriate about ‘holding it out’ because I couldn’t help myself with the joke. It was perfectly set up, you see, and then… I fainted.” He took a step back as if to move away. “Now if you would excuse us, we should probably—“  
  
Sister Meredith would sooner shrivel up and die than leave the conversation at that. “Not so fast!”  
  
Richie suppressed an eye-roll, composed himself, and went on to lift a brow with practiced ease. “Yes…?”  
  
“This isn’t the last you’ll hear of this, Tozier. This doesn’t mean that I won’t report you to Father Thomas. Nor does this mean that you won’t be in detention with me for the next three days,” she said, looking pleased with herself. Then, she turned on her heels and was gone the way that she had come, back down the long, dark corridor of Xavier church.  
  
The moment that she was out of earshot, door slamming closed behind her, Richie screamed after her as loud as he could, “FUCK YOU!” He took a trembling breath before he continued, “SEE? I _AM_ A SINNER!” Then, he turned on his heel and marched in the opposite direction down the corridor, lips drawn into a thin line. Bill and Eddie shared a confused look before scampering after him.  
  
“What’s going on, Rich?” Bill demanded, having fallen into step with him. “Wuh-What are you doing?” He tried to catch Richie’s eye, but his attention was focused elsewhere. His eyes drilled holes into his scuffed, brown loafers as they beat into the stone floor.  
  
“What are you planning?” Eddie asked from his other side, knowing good and well the reason for this rare bout of silence. Richie was only ever this silent, it seemed, when he had something serious on his mind.  
  
He picked at the skin on lips for a moment before he decided to answer. “I’m not planning anything bad,” he said. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone.” Something about what he had said brought the smallest of smirks to his face.  
  
“ _Elaborate_ , Rich. What is it?”  
  
“It’s a plan for the future, Eds,” Richie explained with the vagueness of shapes in the dark. “It doesn’t _heavily_ involve either you or Bill, if that helps.”  
  
Eddie nodded slowly, “But it does involve Sister M, doesn’t it?”  
  
Richie put on another one of his shitty Voices, this of a New York City street cop, finally lifting his head to meet their eyes. “Ya want a cookie, Detective? ‘Cuz I thought that was _great_ police work, I tell ya! _Great_ police work, pal!”  
  
Bill snorted. Eddie rolled his eyes. “Will you at least tell us how we’re involved?”

“You’ll find out in due time, Eds. Due time.”  
  
“Stop calling me that, shitheel,” Eddie grumbled.  
  
Richie gasped, feigning surprise. “I see! A new insult! I shall wear it like a crown!”  
  
“Goddamn…” Eddie mumbled, shaking his head. _  
_


	2. Lonesome Loser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. it's been a hot minute. 
> 
> so i actually have an outline for this story, so i'm sorry this chapter is short, but it needed to be split in half to actually make sense. while this one MIIIIGHT be kinda a filter, i guess it could be important. i mean, not to sound like my seventh grade english teacher, but there's foreshadowing!!!! important!!!!! anyway, i hope that the few reddie fans left in this slowly-dying fandom find this and enjoy it :) 
> 
> love u warriors

“Hey Eddie!”  
  
Hearing the sound of his name, Eddie turned on his heels to see where it had come from. He held his English textbook against his chest, his schoolbag slung over one shoulder. Usually, he walked this route to class with Richie, but the matron, having fallen for his phony affliction hook, line, and fucking sinker, had given him permission to skip the entire day of classes. He was probably fast asleep right now, deep in a blissful dream. _Lucky bastard._  
  
Pushing away such thoughts of envy, Eddie finally spotted the source of who had called his name, stepping out from behind a crowd of rather tall 10th Graders. It was Ben and Mike, and both were coming toward him at a seriously determined speed.  
  
Eddie raised his brows as they approached, shifting his weight from foot-to-foot. “Yeah…?”  
  
Mike dove right to the point, head-first. “What happened at Mass? We haven’t seen either you, Richie, or Bill since then and we’re really worried about—“  
  
“Richie’s _fine_ ,” Eddie said, giving them each an earnest look. He took a moment to search the corridor to see if Sister Meredith was hiding somewhere, crouched on her haunches, prepared to strike at any given moment. She wasn’t, so he turned back to his friends' confused faces. “He faked the whole thing to get out of Mass. Thing is, he got more than he bargained for. Nurse Jean gave him permission to skip his classes.”  
  
“Hold on…” Ben said, holding his hands out in a ‘slow down’ motion as he tilted his head to the side. “That whole thing was fake?”  
  
Eddie bobbed his head. “That’s exactly what Bill said.”  
  
“So he believed it too?” Mike asked to which Eddie nodded again.    
  
Ben snorted. “I shouldn’t be so surprised. I mean, Richie’s a pretty dramatic guy.”  
  
“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth,” Eddie said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Hey, do you guys wanna walk me to English?”  
  
Mike nodded with a small ‘yeah, okay’ but Ben sighed. “I’ve gotta get to class,” he said. “I have to run all the way to the Fleck Building for Latin. I’ll see you guys later. If you see Richie, tell him I’m gonna kick his ass for leaving me alone in Psych.” Ben turned on the heels of his beat-up, hand-me-down loafers and started back down the corridor the way he had come.  
  
Eddie called after him, grinning, a laugh bubbling on his lips, “I sure will! I’ll make sure to tell his scrawny ass to hide or else it’ll be run into the ground.”  
  
“He can’t hide from me!” Ben called over his shoulder, smirking. “I’ll find him and make sure he pays!” It was an empty threat. Ben would never do such a thing, especially not to his friends.  
  
Content, Eddie turned and continued on his route to English, Mike falling easily into step with him. “I’m surprised Sister M. didn’t hunt you down with her bionic hearing," Mike commented with an offhand shrug.  
  
“Nah, she did. She knew exactly what happened. Richie somehow managed to convince her that she was wrong, though, but he still has a three-day detention starting tomorrow. It’s better than a diocese referral, I guess.”  
  
Mike nodded slowly. “That’s surprising, too," he admitted. He couldn't even get through his next sentence without his lips quirking upwards, a dead giveaway. "I mean, maybe she’s softened out a little bit."

A beat passed, then… They both cracked up at the mere thought, utterly disbelieving. “No, she’s hasn’t," they said in unison, sending them off into another peel of laughter.  
  
“What’s so funny?” Stan asked as he fell into step with them, one hand securing his schoolbag. One of his sandy-blond curls stuck up on the back of his head like a cowlick. Half-mindedly, he smoothed it down only for it to spring back up. Eventually, he gave up, bumping his shoulder against Mike’s.  
  
“Mike said he thought Sister M was softening out,” Eddie explained with shrug. “Which is just about the funniest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”  
  
Stan shook his head, smiling. “Yeah, that could never happen. Not in a million years. I mean she’ll probably be alive then. She’s, like, immortal or something.” After a moment, he seemed to realize the absence of someone who was usually stuck to Eddie’s side like adhesive glue, the whole reason he’d gone out of his way on his path to Spanish. “Hey Ed, where’s Richie? I have to talk to him about baseball workouts.”  
  
“He’s in the dorm, probably sleeping…” After a moment, he added with a smirk, “Or jacking off.”  
  
Mike mumbled a ‘gross’ as Stan made a face, rolling his eyes. “What, is he sick or something? Is he skipping again? ‘Cuz if he is, they’re totally gonna call his ma and she’s gonna come up here again and kick his ass like she did last time this happened.”  
  
“Not sick,” Mike said. “Just a phoney.”  
  
“What? What are you talking about?"  
  
“He pretended to faint during Mass, Bill and I took him to the matron, and she let him skip class today,” Eddie explained, simple and to-the-point. “I’ve explained this so many goddamn times,” he grumbled. “Can we talk about something else for once? It’s always Richie-this and Richie-that.”  
  
“Well, if you see Richie will you just tell him to find me about baseball workouts? He won’t make the team if he doesn’t go and show some commitment. Oh, and can you tell Bill if you see him too?”  
  
Mike and Eddie nodded. “Yeah, sure, we will.”  
  
“I’ll see you guys later then. Off to Spanish! _Adios, Miguel y Eduardo! Que tengas un buen dia_!”  
  
  
  
  
  
Eddie didn't see Richie until dinnertime. He was surprised when he hadn't come down for lunch, but hadn't had the time to stop by the dorm and ask him about it. Eddie's schedule was packed with classes this semester and Mass always pushed back his day, so he hadn't had much time to breathe since this morning. Richie came bouncing into the dining hall, happy as a clam, looking perfectly healthy and far more rested than he had been earlier.  
  
Ben let out a groan as Richie fell into the seat beside him, already loudly and enthusiastically blabbing away about something-or-other. “Could you yell any louder, Richie? My head is _pounding_.”  
  
When _Ben_ complained, Richie knew that he needed to tone it down a few notches. He obediently lowered his voice to a more conversational volume, scooping a glop of mashed potatoes onto his plate. “I could if I wanted to, but I suppose I won’t just to be nice to you pitiful-looking dickheads. How were classes today, anyway? Did I miss anything worthwhile?”  
  
“They were _terrible_. You backed out of Psych on me and it sucked,” Ben admitted. “You’re gonna be _so_ behind and I’m won’t help you catch up. You’re on your own, man.” That was a lie. Ben had quite the soft spot when it came to his friends and was most definitely going to break the second Richie asked him for help. Once again, an empty threat.  
  
“You missed it, Rich,” Bill said from across the table, pointing his fork at Richie as if to address only him, eyes sparkling mischievously. “Sister Cecelia totally went berserk on Bowers during lunch over something and then Headmaster Morelli came in and there was this really big fight between them and then the Joe and Paul and Patrick had to pull Bowers away because he was swinging at them like a total madman. I heard they’re calling up his dad and he's gonna come to school to 'take care of it' whatever that means."  
  
“Wait, I missed that?!” Richie looked affronted.  
  
“No, dumbass! Bowers is over there!” Bill pointed across the hall to where Henry Bowers and his friends were sitting, lain back in their seats. He had his feet propped up on the table like a stereotypical bully from a shitty 80s movie, his boots caked with mud. Several nuns at the staff table were glaring daggers at him, but no one went over to reprimand him.  
  
Bowers was one lucky bastard. His grandfather was filthy- _fucking_ -rich. No one really knew how he made all that money, but there was speculation of the narcos and drug lord level crime. His father had gone to Xavier and had made it big there, had eventually even moved up to a diocese-level position. Because Bowers’ father worked for the diocese and he was fucking rich, he could get away with practically anything. Except narcos if that rumor was true. That was looked down upon.  
  
“ _Shit_. I wish that had happened,” Richie said, taking a gulp from his glass of sweet tea. “If he hurt one of the Jesuits with some evidence, he could probably get expelled for real.”  
  
“That’s doubtful,” Eddie piped up from his other side, half-attentively flipping a page in his History textbook, his cheek lent on his palm. “Bowers could literally _murder_ someone in front the entire diocese board and the entire school and still somehow get away with it. I bet his dad drugged those diocese people to get him onto the board.”  
  
“I don’t think drugs can do that, Eddie,” Mike said, shaking his head. “It’d probably take a whole lot of persuasion. I mean, those diocese guys are, like, super religious wannabe saints.”    
  
“Mary-Jane and some persuasion, that’s all it took,” Richie said with a shrug. “Hey I heard this story where some kids in California put weed in the incense thingy and everyone got high as kites. Like, so high that people were puking their guts afterward. There was this, like, contagious vomit train like that one scene from Stand By Me.” As if to punctuate this statement, he let out a pleased ‘mmmh’ as he shoved about four spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into his mouth at once. Everyone groaned as he struggled to keep it all in his mouth. Stan and Eddie diverted their eyes, wincing.  
  
“Richie, we don’t talk about puking when we’re eating. How many times have we been over this?” Eddie insisted, looking back only when he heard Richie swallow over-exaggeratingly. Shaking his head, he mumbled underneath his breath, “ _Fucking disgusting._ ”  
  
“What?” Richie said, looking to the others for help. “I heard about it from Moose Sadler, so it’s definitely true.”  
  
“If you heard about it from _him_ , then it’s obviously not,” Stan quipped as he tried once more to smooth down his cowlick.  
  
“Whatever…” Richie shook his head dismissively. “It’d be cool if shit like that happened here, though. Nothing ever happens here. It’s the same thing every day."  
  
“It’s our last year, you can get through it,” Stan insisted. “Then you’ll be out of here and get stuck in another endless loop called adulthood. I mean, doesn’t it scare you to leave here? We’ve been here for almost ten years, it seems weird to be away. Like a never-ending summer vacation.”  
  
“Another morbid add-on from Stanley!” Bill announced, holding up a finger. “That’s five in one day— a new record!”  
  
Stan elbowed him with a scowl. After an ‘ouch!’ from Bill and a quick ‘don’t start fighting!’ from Ben, Stan went on, “Shut up, it’s the _truth_.”  
  
“Well fuck the truth!” Richie protested, pumping his clenched fist in the air.  
  
“I thought you wanted to leave!”  
  
“I _do_ , it’s just that…“ Richie sighed, letting his hand fall dejectedly back onto the table. “What you said, it makes sense. We need to fuck shit up here before we’re forced into boring-ass adult lives.” The table exploded with objections, a complete outrage.  
  
Stan looked affronted. “That’s not at all what I said!”  
  
“You _implied_ it, Stanley!”  
  
“I didn’t say anything about ‘fucking shit up’ all right? I mean, if you were to do something, then I’d suggest that you focus on your schoolwork like a—“  
  
Richie loudly faked a yawn, letting his arms fall onto the back of Ben and Eddie’s chairs. Stan huffed, folding his arms across his chest like a petulant toddler and slumping back in his seat.

  
  
  
  
Richie was bored out of his goddamn mind. Eddie and Ben were at evening track practice, Stan was in the library, Mike was at a Student Council meeting, and Richie had no idea where the hell Bill was. Since Eddie had track practice every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Richie would always have to find someone else to keep him company. Wednesdays sucked, though, because Mike always had his meetings and Stan usually studied in the library because his English teacher always gave him tests on Thursday mornings. He’d usually fuck around with Bill in the Commons, but he couldn’t find him anywhere, so he sat alone in his dorm, putting off all the schoolwork he had missed during classes today.  
  
The only thing he had to look forward to on Wednesdays were his smoke-sessions with Bev. He’d sneak out of the dorms long after curfew underneath the overseer’s nose and out into the woods to their designated smoking spot to burn out a few Winstons. It made his sucky Wednesdays so much better. Only a few more hours until curfew came and went, then he could sit out there on that stump with Bev, giggling and exchanging stories.  
  
Not for the first time, he wished he had his Walkman to pass the time. He’d gotten it confiscated last semester when Sister M. found it in his schoolbag and had gone through the tape. Turns out, according to her, his music was ‘sinful’ and ‘unholy’ and ‘made by the Devil to control young, naïve minds’. He’d sent his ma a letter complaining about the whole thing— about how Sister M. had gone through his personal property and had taken it from him, but she had sent one back saying Sister M. had the complete right to whatever she wanted. Richie had thrown the letter in the dining hall fireplace, felt a sick sort of pleasure as he watched it shrivel up and turn to ash.  
  
Sighing, he supposed that he would have to conquer his pile of schoolwork sooner or later. It would only fuel his boredom to do it, but at least he could get something done so that he wouldn’t have as much work to do when he came back from his meet-up with Bev. He flipped to the last page he had been on in his book from English class, draped his blanket over his legs, and began to read.  
  
He had gotten about 3/4 of the way through the pages that he was supposed to have read when Eddie came stumbling into the room, practically drenched with sweat. At the sound of the door slamming shut, Richie looked up from his book with raised brows. Eddie looked as if he had been through the wringer, smashed with a hydraulic press, and thrown into a blender. His now-stringy hair was plastered to his forehead, his clothes soaking wet, and his sneakers caked with that dumb red mud from the track that always seemed to follow him everywhere.  
  
“Holy…” He heaved in a whistling breath, wheezing like a squeaky toy, then went on, “Shit…”  
  
Richie half-expected him to pull out his inhaler and take a shaky puff from it, but instead, he hurled his gym bag across the room, kicked off his muddy sneakers, and let out a garbled, exasperated scream, pulling at the roots of his hair.  
  
“What happened to you?” Richie stuck his ‘Remember: Jesus Loves You’ bookmark (his English teacher had given it to him, saying that if she saw even _one_ dog-eared page in that book, she would send a destruction fee to his ma to pay for another one) into his book and set it down on top of his cluttered bedside table. “You look like shit.”  
  
“Gee, thanks, Rich. I _feel_ like shit.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’m just so fucking _sick_ of track! It’s torture!”  
  
“You’re doing it ‘cos you love it. I’ve heard you say it a million times.”  
  
“Well I was wrong then.” Eddie crossed his arms petulantly over his chest. “I hate it. Despise it.”  
  
“No, you don’t. You’re only saying that because you’re pissed. You’ll forget once you take a second to think about it.”  
  
Eddie scoffed. “Since when did you become so insightful?”  
  
“Since I didn’t procrastinate on my homework.” Richie held up his copy of _Lord of the Flies_ like it was a prestigious award he had just received, brandishing it with a toothy grin. “I’m smart now.”  
  
“You were always smart…” Eddie grumbled, nearly collapsing into his desk chair, settling into it backwards so that he could rest his head on his arms and still face Richie. After a sigh, he went on, “Listen, I’m sorry. Track today was absolute hell, all right? We ran _eight miles_ in the rain. I mean, Ben hurled in the bushes and I was this-close to doing the same thing. Jonas Billings actually passed out. It was terrible, and I can’t believe I’m even breathing at all right now. You’d be dead.”  
  
Richie nodded vigorously. “I definitely would’ve. I can barely run the drills at baseball and they’re only, like, two miles.”  
  
“You’re a malnourished stick, yanno? You’d pass out like Jonas did today.”  
  
“Yeah, I have some experience with passing out.” Richie smirked. “I’d say I’m an expert. You sure Jonas didn’t fake it?”  
  
“He was out for, like, two minutes. I doubt it.”  
  
“I could’ve done that for two minutes. It’s easy.”  
  
“You couldn’t have stayed still that long. You couldn’t even keep character for the thirty seconds you were ‘out’ today.”    
  
“You wanna bet then if you’re so sure?”  
  
“No, I don’t,” Eddie said definitively. “I want to take a damn shower ‘cos I feel like I’ve been run over like five times.” Climbing out his chair, he winced as he could already feel his legs start to ache. He trudged over to his closet, pulled out his shower caddy, a towel, and a set of pajamas and, with a short, two-fingered salute, disappeared into the hallway.

Richie sighed dejectedly. _Alone again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it this far, i'm proud of you. truly.


	3. I Can't Believe It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did some revising on this chapter, but it's VERY similar to the original draft i posted. i wouldn't change something big, i promise. my stories are very prone to plot-holes, so i had to go back in and fix a few things, but it's so similar to the original draft, you might not be able to tell the difference.

The curfew had always been like most things were at Xavier— ridiculously, unnecessarily strict. Maybe it was a Catholic thing, who knows? The curfew required that 6th-10th graders be in their beds by 10:00 at the very latest and 11th and 12th graders by 11:15. It had been enforced like the rule of law, of utmost importance that it should be followed.  
  
On weekdays, a dorm overseer patrolled the corridors in the late hours of the night. They were usually members of either Xavier or Saint Catherine’s church that lived in the housing development about 30 miles out, most retired, lonely, and in need of a small income for minimal work. The pay wasn’t very good and, quite honestly, neither was the job itself, but it was easier than pumping gas at the Shell. Those old coots usually fell asleep at their posts, anyway, slumped down in their chairs like weighted dolls.  
  
Richie had always felt sorry for them despite their lack of drive. All they really had to do was stroll around the corridors, look for anyone out of bed, and escort the kids who desperately had to pee in the middle of the night to the bathrooms. It was easy work, sure, but an undesirable job.  
  
The art of sneaking out depended on the overseer, of course. Sometimes, they switched up nights at random. Wednesday, though, was the only night in the entire week that was always the same. Richie didn’t know the name of the old man that watched the corridors that night nor did he have the desire to, but he knew that that old fart always fell asleep the second his shift started at 11. He probably had to be shaken awake by Brother Sanchez, the Jesuit that lived on the Grade 11 and 12 hall.  
  
Sneaking out when Sandman was on duty, though, was as easy as breathing, which was why Richie and Bev had come to an agreement to meet up in the woods every Wednesday at midnight. By then, almost everyone was asleep (at least everyone with some sort of authority), and execution of his plan was made easy.  
  
Richie slipped out of his dorm at 11:45 that night, careful to not raise attention. Eddie had fallen asleep about 20 minutes before, spread-eagled and open-mouthed. Richie had to suppress a laugh as he slowly closed the door, stepping out into the hallway. Peering both left and right, he checked to make sure that he was alone— that there was no one else wandering around after hours. He was safe.  
  
He pulled the hood of his black UMaine sweatshirt over his head as he tip-toed down the corridor with a practiced ease, sneakers cushioned by the patterned, velvet runner. The banker lamps mounted on the walls acted as a guide for his getaway, an escort to freedom.  
  
Richie made it to the back door without a problem. Sandman must’ve been on duty. He stood before the door for a moment, readying himself with deep breaths. An alarm would go off if he just pushed it open, so he would have to turn off the alarm before he made it out. He pulled his trusty screwdriver out of the pocket of his hoodie and rammed it into the alarm system, effectively turning it off until he could activate it again. Still, he hesitated as he turned the handle and slowly pulled it open. The alarm was blissfully silent. He let out a shaky sigh of relief as he slipped out into the cool night, shoving the screwdriver back into his pocket.  
  
He braced himself with another deep breath before he darted across campus toward a break in the trees, doing his best to avoid being underneath the lampposts’ beams. It was adrenaline-inducing and liberating, and Richie was laughing hysterically by the time he was half-way across the field. His sneakers pounded into the soft dirt, up-kicking the plush sod. An addicting sense of rebellion only fueled his obsession with sneaking out. In his opinion, this type of adrenaline-high was better than any drug.  
  
He was still laughing by the time he made it into the woods, so hard and so uncontrollably that he had to fully stop to catch his breath. He had one hand lent against a nearby tree as he knelt, half-doubled over, and the other pressed against his heaving chest. After a solid minute, the adrenaline began to wear off. He quieted down after a moment, lent against the tree as he tried to regain his normal breathing pattern. Just as he was about to start walking again toward the smoking-spot, he heard a rustling of leaves oddly close to where he was standing.  
  
His breath hitched in his throat. His first thought was that it was Beverly trying to scare him or something, to jump out at him and laugh as he screamed, but after a moment, he realized that she would’ve had to have run all the way to this side of the woods, the five whole miles. It was unnecessary. His second, more plausible thought was that it was just a forest hare or something equally not-dangerous, but then he caught sight of something off in the distance and froze completely, his blood running cold.  
  
It was a person. It could’ve just been the way they walked, but it looked as if they floated through the underbrush, around trees and over rocks. They were tall, lanky, and dressed in a long, black hooded robe. They had a strand of thick, knotted, golden rope tied around their waist like a belt, reminding Richie distantly of the ancient monks or the priests at Mass. They had black gloves on their hands, cinched and tied around the wrist.  
  
Richie watched, rendered suddenly unable to move, as they passed by a thick, gnarled tree. He had expected them to come out the other side, but they did no such thing. It was almost as if they had disappeared into thin air, gone forever. He let out an unsteady breath. It was only his imagination.  
  
He shook the image away as he moved further into the forest. With shaky hands, he dug through the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a pack of Winstons along with his flip lighter. His hands were shaking so badly that it took him several tries to successfully light his cigarette. He stuck it in between his teeth and took a generous drag, maneuvering his way around a fallen branch.  
  
Twenty uneventful minutes of walking and two Winstons later, he finally made it to their meet-up spot. He could see Bev perched on an old tree stump, her own cigarette hanging precariously from her own lips. She was staring off into the distance as if deep in thought, alight in her flashlight beam. She didn’t notice Richie as he came bounding up to her with a dopey grin.  
  
“ _Why_ , if it isn’t Beverly Marsh as I live and breathe!” he proclaimed loudly in his Southern Belle, flopping down onto the stump beside her.  
  
Bev let out a small, almost-childish shriek of surprise, bringing the cigarette down for her lips. “ _Goddammit_ , Richie!” She smacked him on the shoulder with a disapproving scowl. “You could’ve killed me! I could’ve choked on this thing!” She gestured wildly toward her cigarette.  
  
“Well we’re both lucky that you didn’t,” he commented off-handedly, leaning over and taking the cigarette from between her fingers. He brought it up to his own lips. “‘Sorry I’m late, I was walking kinda slow. It’s been a… weird day, I guess. Really unusual.”  
  
“What happened? Did you go down to breakfast in your underwear again?” She tilted her head to the side, grinning mischievously. That was _quite_ the story.  
  
“That was _one_ _time_! I’ll never live that down, I swear...” Richie grumbled, shaking his head. “But _no_ , it was just… weird.”  
  
Bev snorted. “Wow, you’re full of so many smart-sounding, SAT words tonight.” She snatched the cigarette back from between his fingers, smirking.  
  
“Shut up, I can’t _explain_ it!” Richie stuck out his bottom lip, pouting petulantly.  
  
“Well then what did you do today?” she suggested, exhaling a thin stream of smoke out from in between her lips, an almost pensive look on her face.  
  
“Eddie dragged me out of bed at 7:30 to get ready for church, I pretended to faint during Mass, then I sp—“  Richie listed off what he did this morning on his fingers with a nonchalant indifference.  
  
Bev cut him off with a sharp gasp. “Shut up, _really_?!”  
  
He nodded, slowly and deliberately, confused as to why she was suddenly so hooked on his story. It wasn’t that crazy… right?  
  
“Holy shit! That’s _revolutionary_!”  
  
Richie scoffed, shaking his head. “Not really. I mean, people do it a decent amount of times to—“  
  
“No, it’s revolutionary! How did you do it?” Bev looked about as interested as she would’ve been with someone retelling a story about an intense fist-fight with a shark— which as very. She was practically on the edge of her seat, invested and distracted enough for Richie to take back the cigarette without her bitching about it.  
  
He put it up to his lips, took a drag, and went on, “It was either super easy or I got really damn lucky, but I got to miss classes today. Got caught up on my much-needed beauty sleep, read some comics, wished for my _damn Walkman_ —”  
  
“You’ll never let that go, will you?”  
  
Richie scoffed. “Of course not! That mix I made in it was my _pride and joy_ , but she took that away too! She crushed my dreams before they had the chance to take flight like b—“  
  
Bev cut him off with a swift kick to his shins. “What about stealing it back?”  
  
“You think I haven’t thought about that? She’d notice if it was gone. I bet that she checks and makes sure it’s there with my other contraband shit every night and every morning. She’s a psychopath, and she’s obsessed with me. Not in a good way.”  
  
“How could that _possibly_ be in a good way? Sister M’s a heartless, old nun.”  
  
Richie pursed his lips. “But having people obsessed with you, in a good way, sounds like the dream, though, doesn’t it?”  
  
Bev nodded slowly. “ _Right_ , your big-shot comedian dreams. You do you, Rich, but I’d rather not have crazy fans flock me every time I go out.”  
  
“Comedians usually don’t get crazy fans, not unless they act a shit-ton or have a late night show or something.”  
  
Bev shrugged wordlessly, stealing back her cigarette for what felt like the thousandth time. Richie sighed as he took out one of his own. A sharp pang of sadness always came with his dream of becoming a comedian. It was unusual, and it shouldn’t be there, but it was. It had always felt so unattainable, so far away, but it wasn’t. He’d be leaving Xavier next year, and, like Stan said, he’d be thrown into the ‘endless cycle’ of adulthood. There were guys out there much funnier than he was, and the mere thought of not making it terrified him. Comedians were sharks like the rest of Hollywood was, he supposed. He was scared of leaving this place, but at the same time, he wanted it oh-so-badly.  
  
A symphony of crickets chirped off in the distance, a coyote cried for its pack.  
  
They smoked in silence.  
  
Suddenly, after quite a while of such morbid, depressing thoughts, Richie’s mind supplied him another one. It was a question that had been gnawing at him for what was probably his entire life, no big deal. He’d never actually talked to anyone about it, but it had always been present. It was unspoken, taboo sort of thought in Catholic school. “What do you think happens to us when we die?”  
  
Bev looked up at him, a frown between her brows. “Is that you or the cigarette talking?”  
  
Richie rolled his eyes. “It’s both, now answer me.”  
  
She sighed, “Well… I guess I’m not sure. I don’t know what to believe. I mean, I guess I’m agnostic…” Admitting agnosticism in a place like Xavier-Catherine took a lot of guts, though it wasn’t as unspeakable as admitting to down-right atheism. Catholic school was a decision made mostly by parents. Kids usually didn’t want to go (they wanted to go to public school and be exposed to the real world), they went because their parents wanted them to. They were either sent in for re-righting misbehavior or the education. Richie’d been sent for both.  
  
“If anyone heard you say that, you’d be skinned.”  
  
“I know I would. Gotta stick it to the man, yanno?” Bev smirked, absently picking at the chipped black paint on her fingernails (they were supposed to be painted at all, what with dress code and everything).  
  
Richie nodded, sniffling absently. “I guess.”    
  
“But what about you? What do you think? About death?”  
  
“Uh, well…” Richie fumbled. He hadn’t really been prepared for an answer despite having been the one to bring it up in the first place. The truthfulness of Bev’s reply left him unsure of what to say. He’d been raised strictly Catholic, sent to Xavier like his father before him. He’d gone to Mass every week for as long as he could remember, tagged along with his parents to church functions and midnight Masses on Christmas. He’d grown up being told that he’d go to Xavier to make his family proud. When he had gotten in (unsurprisingly), he remembered how excited his father had been. But this question had always been there, ever-present, did he really believe in God and heaven and hell or was that just how he was raised? He didn’t know. “I don’t really know either. At all.”  
  
Bev nodded, understanding. “It’s fine, don’t kick yourself over it. It’s way too moral and deep for us right now.” She gestured toward her cigarette with a small smile.  
  
He couldn’t help but be thankful that she hadn’t pushed him for an answer. He smiled back at her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Richie was startled awake in the early hours of the morning by three sharp rasps on his dormitory door. He didn’t have time to wonder why his vision was suddenly so clear as he looked hazily toward said door, blinking slowly. In the bed diagonal from him, Eddie let out a surprised shout as he shot awake with a disoriented huh? The room was pitch black save for the thin stream of light filtered in from the small gap underneath the door and the murky orange of the lamppost outside their only window.  
  
“We’re under lockdown! Stay in your rooms! Don’t leave the building!” A voice that Richie could vaguely register belonged to Brother Sanchez, his Spanish teacher, shouted through the door. He could see the shadow of Sanchez’s shoes through the gap underneath it, watched as he moved on to Bill and Stan’s door beside theirs and repeated the same process.  
  
After several moments of confused, open-mouthed blinking, Richie was finally able to assess the situation. He must’ve forgotten to take his glasses off the previous night (or, more specifically, earlier that very morning), so he had fallen asleep with them on, which explained why he suddenly had super-vision. He had also fallen asleep facing the wrong way, his sock-clad feet up against his pillow. He must’ve dozed off while he was copying down his Psych notes because, from what he could tell, the puddle of drool dried on the side of his face and the wrinkled, somewhat-damp imprint on his textbook page tell a story for themselves.  
  
“ _Holy shit_ …” Eddie exhaled in a voice still thick with sleep. It was too dark for him to see Richie very well, but the glint of his coke-bottles was enough for Eddie to tell where he was. “Does that mean someone broke in?”  
  
For only a moment, Richie felt his heartbeat in his throat. Could it have been the door he’d used to escape? The alarm hadn’t detonated and he’d been able to turn it back on once he’d slipped back into the building. It hadn’t gone off— he’d checked the system it and it was still working undetected. Besides, wouldn’t they have staged the lockdown at the time of his sneaking in/out? It wouldn’t make sense that it was him, and the thought that it could’ve been someone else was terrifying.  
  
“I don’t know, I guess it does. It could’ve been something else, though. A drill, maybe?” He felt around for the switch on his lamp, and, after knocking over his alarm clock with a loud crash, found it and flipped it on. It took a moment for his eyes to readjust.  
  
“At…” Eddie squinted down at the watch his ma had given him for his 16th birthday. “4:28 in the morning?”  
  
Richie cursed through his teeth. “What do you think it is?” Absently, he wiped at the dried drool on his face.  
  
“I don’t know, _you_ were the last one out. What time did you get back anyway?”  
  
“About 1:15, so not that late this time. I did some homework and fell asleep doing it,” Richie explained. “Psych notes are naturally sleep-inducing. I mean, all this talk about brain functions? _Bo-ring_!”  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes. “You need to set your priorities straight. Homework or smoking? I mean, this semester, I’m _swamped_. Homework is really not something to joke ab—“  
  
Richie suddenly cut him off with an almost vehement whisper-shout, “ _Shut up_!”  
  
Eddie looked offended. “What?!”  
  
“ _Listen_!”  
  
Eddie quieted down, though begrudgingly, and listened for whatever Richie was so freaked out over. It took him several moments of wracking his ears, trying to somehow invoke super-sonic hearing, before he heard it off in the distance— sirens. Eddie looked over at Richie, wide-eyed. “Is that…?”  
  
Richie nodded. “Well, it’s either police cars or ambulances. The sirens sound, like, the same to me. Fire sirens are different, like horns.”  
  
How he knew all that stuff, Eddie didn’t know. “We’re under lockdown, _dumbass_ , it’s obviously not a fire truck.”  
  
Richie waved it off dismissively as he crawled out of bed, toed on his sneakers, and moved over to the window. Nothing out of the ordinary, of course, only their regular view of the forest opposite of the Xavier-Catherine cut-through. The lamppost still shone as annoyingly bright and orange as it always did, glaring through the windowpane. With a long-drawn sigh, he shuffled over to the door. He got as far as to put his hand on the knob before Eddie stopped him. “Richie, what are you doing? Didn’t you hear Sanchez?!”  
  
He looked back at Eddie and shrugged. “I’m just gonna look out, okay? We’re probably, like, the only people who actually listened to whole ‘lockdown’ thing. I know the people in this grade, they’re crazy curious. I wanna figure out what happened.”  
  
Eddie sighed, conceding. He too wanted to figure out what was going on. He picked at the skin around his thumb as he reluctantly moved to stand beside Richie at the door, shoving on his shoes as he went. They shared a look of apprehension as Richie turned the handle and shoved it open. It creaked as it swung outward, revealing the kids from their grade clustered in the hallway, clad in their pajamas, talking animatedly. They spotted their friends and hurried over to them.  
  
“What’s going on?” Eddie asked, his arms folded across his chest. This whole situation was certainly making him nervous. Richie stood beside him, absently picking at the skin on his lips. Eddie suppressed the urge to snap at him over his tick.  
  
Ben frowned. “We don’t know. We heard sirens, so we came out here. Everyone’s wondering if we should go downstairs.”  
  
“It’s a lockdown, Ben, we shouldn’t be out here in the first place,” Stan insisted. In a voice that disclosed his reluctance, he went on, “But we are anyway...”  
  
Bill rubbed his temples. “It’s a cruh-crapshoot. We’ll all get detention.”  
  
“Better us all than us alone,” Mike scratched his face. He’d planned to shave later that morning, but everything was falling through. “Makes it more fun.”  
  
Richie nodded vigorously. “That’s right as rain, Mikey. Detention by yourself is hell on steroids.” This only reminded him of where he’d be for the next three nights, stuck in detention with Sister M.  
  
“Shouldn’t hell by itself be bad enough? Does it need steroids?”  
  
Richie shrugged, pursing his lips. “I dunno. ‘Sounds bad either way. I guess that if I had to—”  
  
“What are you doing?!” Oh, shit. It was Brother Sanchez. He was back, and he certainly wasn’t very happy. Everyone froze. Conversation ceased. “I’ll talk to you boys about this later. I’ve been asked to escort everyone down to the courtyard.” No one moved. “Now!” As if shocked back to life, everyone did as they were told. Conversations started back up again as they ambled down the corridor. None of the Losers spoke, though, only listened as the other kids from their grade gave their own theories as to what had happened.  
  
(“I’d bet we were robbed!” Jonas Billings suggested with a shrug. He seemed to have recovered from the incident at track practice the night before. “Why would someone rob a boarding school?!” Dante Louis shot back. Then, he went on, “I’d bet someone had a heart attack and died.” Henry Spitzer socked him in the shoulder.)  
  
They walked on, though, through the dorm building in the early hours of the morning, accompanied by Brother Sanchez. The paintings of bible scenes that lined the walls, the crucifixes, the pictures, seem to watch over them as they marched on. Sandman was long gone.  
  
Eventually, when they made it to the courtyard, they collectively stopped to take it all in. The sun had yet to rise, but the murky-orange glow of lampposts lit the area like a bonfire. Police cars, ambulances, nuns, Jesuits, priests, almost the entire study body of Xavier was gathered there, talking amongst themselves in quiet, reverent tones. People were crying, sobbing uncontrollably into their friends shoulders.  
  
Something bad had happened, they all could tell.  
  
Richie spotted Old Joe in the crowd and let out a sigh of relief. He was talking to Ben’s Latin teacher in an undertone, shaking his head slowly. Richie couldn’t help his curiosity. Old Joe was probably the only person here that would give it to him straight, no questions asked.  
  
The other kids in his grade seemed to trail behind him as he approached his favorite Jesuit. “Joe,” he said because, by now, they were on first name basis (though Joe insisted on calling Richie ‘Tozier’ every chance he got), “What’s going on?”  
  
Joe addressed him with a level brow. For a moment, he said nothing. His gaze flickered around the group of 12th Graders that had gathered behind Richie, looking both expectant and confused. “Betty Ripsom and Ed Corcoran were found dead in the woods earlier this morning. They were… murdered.”  
  
Richie almost passed out for real this time.  
  
The person from the woods. The blood ran out of his face. He froze. “ _Oh my, God_.”  
  
Joe let it slide considering the circumstances. “What, Tozier?”  
  
Richie heaved in a shaking breath. He couldn't believe he was doing this. “I think I know who did it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm cruel. please forgive me. the next chapter will be out soon, i promise.


	4. There's A Word For People Like You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES i know what an umlaut is. he's german for a reason.

**RICHARD TOZIER - 5:02 AM**  
  
Detective Umlauts (or so it said on his golden tag) pressed down a button on his silver tape recorder with a chubby sausage-finger. He held it up to his mouth as he went about stating the basic facts about the interrogation. His handlebar mustache scratched it as he spoke in his thick German brogue, “It’s Thursday March 18th, 1992. The time is 5:02 am. This is Detective Umlauts here with eye-witness Richard Tozier with some information about Case 0482930, the double homocide of Elizabeth Ripsom and Edward Corcoran.”  
  
Richie blinked. He knew that he hadn’t killed either of them, but something about sitting in an interrogation made him feel like he’d been caught red-handed. There was a bit of rightful blame on his behalf, though, seeing as he had seen the supposed killer and hadn’t said anything about it until it was too late. His stomach clenched.  
  
Umlauts and Richie were alone in one of the many recreation rooms in the Xavier church building. After he’d admitted his knowledge about the case to Old Joe, he’d been dragged over to the police investigators by his ear to tell them the same thing. A nice lady cop had smiled at him (grimaced, more like) and had led him into the church building, Joe and Headmaster Morelli hot on his heels. Richie’d waited with them and Lady Cop for a few minutes before Umlauts came in and brought him into the temporary interrogation room to be questioned. His palms had never sweat so much.  
  
There were crucifixes on the wall, which wasn’t unusual considering every single room on campus had at least one crucifix somewhere. It was only worth mentioning because there were about ten anchored at various heights all over the walls of the small, closet-like room. Like Richie had imagined an interrogation room in an old New York City police station, he sat opposite of the detective at a fold-out table in the semi-darkness. He half-expected a dark uniformed guy to come swaggering in, wield back his fist, and punch him square in the face.  
  
There was a bible beside his left hand as if he were being sworn in to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He hadn’t exactly been forced to do any swearing in, of course. He’d been told repeatedly that he wasn’t suspected for the murders, but he couldn’t help but wonder why they’d brought him in here to interrogate him.  
  
“So, Tozier...” Umlauts paused, scratched his mustache with his meaty hand, and went on, “You said you knew who the killer was, is that correct?”  
  
“Whuh— _No_ , uh, it’s not.” Richie shook his head vigorously. Sure, he’d said he knew who had done it, but not _who_ had done it. “I don’t know who the killer is. I saw them, but I don’t know who they are.”  
  
Umlauts nodded, a quick bob of his head. “You said you didn’t know enough for a police sketch, is that correct?”  
  
“Yeah, I didn’t see their face.”  
  
“Then can you explain how that went down? The night?"  
  
“Uh, well…” He’d already dug himself a hole by admitting to seeing the person in the first place. He would have to explain what he was doing out in the woods in the middle of the night, which could only lead to him getting in even more trouble. He reasoned that the school wouldn’t get mad at him for smoking (kids smoked all the time in plain sight of the teachers), but sneaking out was on another plane of existence. “I snuck out to meet one of my friends from St. Catherine’s in the woods. I—“  
  
“And what were you doing in the woods with your… friend…?” Umlauts raised his eyebrows expectantly.  
  
Richie’s brain was screaming at him, pleading with him to not throw her under the bus, but he couldn’t help it. It was word-vomit and the drive to tell the truth in risk of getting wrongfully accused and thrown behind bars. “Her name’s Beverly Marsh. I mean, we aren’t really allowed to see each other because of those stupid strict rules here about boys and girls mingling and whatnot. We meet in the woods and smoke Winstons.” He couldn't control himself, or, more specifically, his mouth.

 _Beep beep, Richie._  
  
“And do you have a… relationship with her?“ His mustache twitched.  
  
“A relationship? Like… romantically?” Umlauts nodded with a gruff ‘yes’ and Richie snorted. “No, definitely not. She’s like my sister. We’ve known each other since we were ten. Our moms are friends. Bev’s head over heels for my friend, Ben Hanscom, anyway, so I obviously wouldn’t steal her from him.” Spilling her secrets, too?! _God_ , Richie needed to shut up.  
  
“So what do you do in the woods?”  
  
“We talk about our weeks,” Richie shrugged. “About schoolwork and what goes on with our friends. School drama, moral philosophy, whatever we want.”    
  
A moment passed. Umlauts leveled him with a calculated stare. “Go on with your story, then.”    
  
_Story?_ Richie thought. _He really had to call it a story?!_ With a sigh, he went on, “I used a screwdriver to turn off the alarm and sneak out of the dorms. It was about 11:45, so I probably saw who I thought was the killer at around midnight. I was walking in the woods when I saw them about 30 feet from where I was standing. They never saw me, I don’t think. I hid behind a tree and watched them. They had on this long, black cloak. It had a hood, so I couldn’t see their face. And it wasn’t like a nun robe or anything, it was just a robe.  
  
There was a piece of golden rope tied around their waist kinda like a priest or something, but the cloak was different because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a priest wearing black like that. They also had on these… gloves. I don’t know what they were made out of, but I know they weren’t, like, doctor gloves or anything. They were black. This person went behind a tree and, as far as I knew, disappeared. I could’ve sworn that it was just my imagination, that’s why I ignored it and didn’t think about it until I found that that’s where Betty and Ed were found this morning.”  
  
“What time did you go back to the dorms?” He seemed to be trying to piece things together (Richie could practically see the cogs turning in his head), but he also seemed to be trying to coax something out of him.  
  
“About 1 o’clock. I didn’t stay for long because I still had a little bit of homework left. I slept most of the day because I didn’t have classes, so I didn’t really need much sleep that night. Usually, I would’ve conched out the second I made it to the dorms.”  
  
Umlauts sighed. Tozier liked to talk, he could tell that much, but he didn’t, not for the life of him, believe that he was the one that killed those kids. He’d admitted _immediately_ as of finding out about their deaths that he thought he knew who’d done it— no actual murderer would’ve done that and come up with an alibi and description so risky. The story checked out with what they’d found on him when they’d taken him in: the screwdriver, the Winstons, the lighter. And he definitely didn’t look like he could’ve wrangled either of those kids.  
  
“Listen, Tozier, I don’t think you did it. The autopsies haven’t come back yet, so we can’t tell you when they were killed, but if it was while you were in the woods, they’re probably gonna detain you. If it comes back between 11:45 and 1, you or your friend could be arrested. You would’ve heard if they were killed, though, wouldn’t you?”  
  
Richie nodded along. “Yeah, but couldn’t they have been killed somewhere else and had their bodies, you know, disposed of in there?” He’d seen enough horror movies to know a few instances of _that_ happening. Hell, he could’ve been framed!  
  
“We’ll check the crime scene more thoroughly. The autopsies will tell us for sure. As of right now, you aren’t a suspect, you’re an eye-witness, but you’re the only one with information about what’s happened. You’re the closest we have to one. How did you know Corcoran and Ripsom, anyway?”  
  
“I didn’t even really _know_ them.” It was true. He’d talked to Ed only once when they were partnered up for PE fencing, and he’d only ever _heard_ about Betty Ripsom. “I only knew about Betty because Bev knows her. I knew Ed more because we were fencing partners once and he’s on the track team. Now that I think about it, though, my friend Eddie— same name, different nickname— probably saw Ed at track practice last night. I mean, if he was there.”  
  
There it was again: the word-vomit. He’d even dropped _Eddie’s_ name into the investigation, he was so nervous. He didn’t know what he was doing, only hoped that it would keep everyone’s asses out of prison. Umlauts said that he and Bev could get arrested, he couldn’t help that he was shitting bricks!  
  
“What’s your friend’s name, kid? The one at track practice?”  
  
He should’ve kept his mouth shut. He probably would’ve been better off not telling this rand-o detective about his entire friend group. Oh, well. “Eddie Kaspbrak. He can probably tell you if Ed Corcoran was there.”  
  
Umlauts asked him how to spell it and he begrudgingly complied, though he did made sure to spell Kaspbrak like ‘Casbrack’ just for the hell of it. “And how long was practice, do you think?”  
  
“I don’t know, 7 to 9?” Richie shrugged. It _was_ 7 to 9, and he knew it (Eddie always had long practices on Wednesdays), but he was growing tired of being pounded with questions. “Do you really need that tape recorder? I’m only an eye-witness. I’m not Ted Bundy.”  
  
With a scowl, Umlauts turned it off. He leveled Richie with a stare. “I usually don’t need this. I don’t use it at the station that often. It’s just that I’m not allowed to take you off campus. Your school’s awfully strict. I’d need permission from about 5 members of the high-ranks and the Headmaster to personally accompany us to take you to the station.”  
  
Richie laughed bitterly. “I’ve been here for seven years, man, it blows.”  
  
“I’ve been here for half an hour and I think the same thing,” Umlauts commented briskly as he snapped his notepad shut and rose from his seat. “You can go, Tozier. I hope you’re in the clear.”  
  
“Thanks, detective,” Richie smiled, giving the man a two-fingered salute as he stood from his chair. “Good luck on that case, by the way. I hope I helped.”  
  
A tired sigh escaped from his lips as he slipped out into the church building corridor. Old Joe was there waiting for him, lent against the far wall. He was scratching his scruffy beard and mumbling underneath his breath, fiddling with his crucifix necklace. Eddie and Stan were with him, much to Richie’s surprise, and both looked taut with worry. Eddie was rubbing his hands together nervously while Stan bit down on his lip, half-mindedly trying to smooth down his cowlick. _A tick._  
  
At the sound of the door clicking shut, their heads shot up in unison.  
  
Eddie was on him in a minute. Literally, for once. On an impulse, he threw his arms around Richie, who, for a moment, was all but frozen to the spot. He seemed to come to after a few seconds of standing stock-still with his arms at his side and managed to return the embrace gratefully. It only lasted for a few seconds, and Eddie let him go all too soon, but it was enough. “What’d they do?” Eddie’s grip on Richie’s elbows was both tight and desperate as he looked him square in the eyes, but no complaints escaped from Richie’s lips. “Are you okay? What happened?”  
  
“ _Mylanta_ , Spaghetti, slow down…” Richie held his hands out. “I just got asked a bunch of questions. I mean, the person I saw might not even be the same one that killed Ed and Betty. There isn’t any ‘incriminating’ evidence anyway. I’m an eyewitness.”  
  
“Could’ve fooled us,” Stan half-shrugged. “Eye-witnesses don’t get interrogated like that.”  
  
“Well _I_ did,” Richie insisted, giving him a look from over Eddie’s shoulder. “It wasn’t even bad. I’m just trying to help the investigation.”  
  
Joe shook his head, tucking his crucifix back into his shirt. “Your description was vague and shoddy. The killer obviously doesn’t want to be found.”  
  
“Maybe it helped narrow something down, I don’t know. I mean I don’t even know how they were killed.” He looked to Eddie and Stan to see if they could be of any help, but they could only shake their heads. Helplessly, Eddie took a step back, letting Richie’s elbows slip out of his grasp.  
  
A moment passed. The hallway was silent. Old Joe piped up almost inaudibly, “Stabbed.”  
  
“ _Jesus_ …” Eddie said without thinking (“THIRD COMMANDMENT, EDWARD!” a shrill voice that sounded eerily like a cross between his ma and Sister M rang out in his head).  
  
Joe said nothing about it. His eyes were glued to a painting hung on the opposite wall. It was an oil-on-canvas that had been there for as long as he could remember. Hell, he remembered the painting from when he had gone here all those years ago. It was of a shepherd and his flock of white lambs— lambs of which symbolized the suffering of Christ, but also the purity of the sacrifice. It was fitting. Those children were the lambs, he supposed.  
  
For a while, no one said anything, far too shocked to form coherent thoughts. No one had ever been killed at Xavier-Catherine in the almost 80 years that it had been in existence. It was unheard of and foreign and entirety too sad to fully, completely comprehend, but it had happened anyway. There was nothing they could do about it now.  
  
Ed and Betty were dead. Everything would change.  
  
News of the murders, surely, was going to spread like wildfire. Parents would start to find out and students would be pulled out the second that it took to the wind. Eddie wouldn’t be surprised if he was among them. The second Mrs. K found out, she would squeeze herself into her tiny, pink Volkswagen Beetle and speed all the way up here. She would stomp up to Headmaster Morelli’s office and _demand_ the he unenroll Eddie and refund her for the year or _I will sue your ass for every penny you’re worth._ She would pull Eddie away by his ear as he kicked and screamed that _she let him go,_ but she wouldn’t. Instead, she’d lock him in his room for the rest of eternity because _she cared so much, Eddie-bear._  
  
Eddie shook the thought away. He’d deal with that problem when he came to it.  
  
Richie opened his mouth to say something, but rammed it shut again when he caught sight of a red-faced Sister Meredith barreling down the corridor, straight toward them. Her attention was hyper-focused on Richie, and her scowl only deepened as she got closer. “You snuck out, Tozier?!” she all but shrieked.  
  
“ _Shit_ …” Richie exhaled through his teeth. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He was done-for.  
  
Sister M surely raised hell. Satan smirked behind a clawed hand. “I will call your _mother_ , I will call the _school board_ , and I will have you EXPELLED!” she screeched like a rusty freight train break, a piercing, almost-unbearable sound. Big, ugly purple veins stuck out of her neck like cords as she bared her teeth, a rabid dog on the prowl for exposed, flabby skin.  
  
Any other person would shrivel up and die underneath her glare, but Richie simply took it like he would a paddling. He ground his teeth in an attempt to keep his mouth shut, to muzzle any incriminating words that came bubbling up to the surface. He wanted to protest, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. If Headmaster Morelli or something else with ultimate authority was here then maybe he would’ve fought back, but no one was, so he kept his mouth shut and dealt with her incessant shrieking like he would a dismissible white noise.    
  
But she folded her arms and tapped her foot, waiting. She was a mosquito in the summertime, buzzing in his ears, as obnoxious as she was incessant. He couldn’t ignore her, that crazy old bat. She obviously wanted an explanation for the whole thing. She didn’t get one, at least not from Richie. Old Joe beat him to it, thank God. “You do realize, Sister, that if he hadn’t snuck out, he wouldn’t have seen who the culprit was. We’d be completely in the dark on who could’ve done it.”  
  
She remained unfazed. If anything, Joe’s words only seemed to boost her ego even more. She was playing her cards. “It was an expellable offense, you see, and it deserves equitable punishment. He still broke the rules. I can easily take this to the diocese, which will result in clear, unquestionable expulsion.”  
  
Joe nodded slowly as a canned smile stretched across his wrinkled cheeks. “I’m sure the diocese would also love to hear about the unwarranted beatings you give the students that you personally don’t like. The detentions, maybe? The stealing?”  
  
The latter point made her flinch: stealing. Old Joe had hit a _sweet, precious_ nerve and, God, was it wonderful. Sister M withdrew into herself like a turtle into its shell, even doing so much as to take several steps back in shock. Richie could only blink. She looked up, wide-eyed. “Y-You don’t know anything,” she sputtered helplessly, a fish out of water.  
  
“But I do…” Brother Joe crossed his arms. It went to show how much he knew, which was a lot. “Now if you could _please_ leave Tozier alone?” Richie looked up at the sound of his name, mouth falling unhinged in shock. He definitely hadn’t expected to be brought into it like this, but Sister M had finally been called out, so he was pleased nevertheless. That crazy old bat deserved to be put into her place, anyway. He was glad it was Old Joe that had done it. Anyone else probably wouldn’t have been able to hold their ground.  
  
Sister M nodded once, albeit shakily. Then, as if in a trance, she turned on the short heel of her Pilgrim-buckle shoes and slinked back down the corridor the way she had come, this time like a puppy with its tail tucked in between its legs.  
  
Richie could barely believe it. Stan rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was seeing things correctly. Eddie shook his head in disbelief.  
  
She was _intimidated_.  
  
Bill and the others would never believe them if they retold what had just happened, it was so bizarre and unusual. As far as anyone else was concerned, Sister M was an unfeeling, heartless robot crafted by Satan himself down in the depths of Hell, not a wide-eyed nun. It was like seeing a polar bear or something in the middle of the Sahara, it didn’t happen. As Richie liked to say, she was caught with her pants bunched around her ankles.  
  
“Did that… really just happen?” Richie couldn’t help but ask because _what the hell?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm trying to shorten my chapters so i can post more and increase readability. also, if the interrogation scene is completely wrong and unnatural, i apologize. i've never been questioned like that and i'm definitely not a trained detective. 
> 
> i mean, i watch brooklyn nine-nine, so i'm practically an expert, but please don't hurt me :) 
> 
> xoxoxoxoxo


	5. Devil's Advocate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RICHIE SAYS BENVERLY RIGHTS
> 
> Is the separation of Xavier-Catherine really necessary? Yes, it is. Or... it WILL BE, at least. 
> 
> Here’s some background on the schools separation (if you want it).
> 
> Xavier used to be the main school. It was co-Ed and everything. The nun-student scandal was among the reasons why the school was split. Saint Catherine was built 10 years before the story takes place. Bev was among one of the first classes there. It’s new and modern.
> 
> MORELLI IS THE HEADMASTER OF BOTH SCHOOLS, but his office and the administration office is on Xavier property. The ‘hearse’ is also used to bring misbehaving girls up to Xavier to talk to him.

Morning Mass had never been so depressing. Not even Good Friday was this bad, and that service had all the old people bawling their eyes out. It was a terribly sad day for Christians, sure, but they were acting like they didn’t know how everything turned out in the end. Spoiler alert, Jesus comes back to life.  
  
_This_ , however, was different.

A reverent hush had fallen over the congregation, and Father Thomas’ usually-booming voice was but a low whisper. A memorial service, Brother Sanchez had called it, for Betty and Ed.

The entire Xavier-Catherine staff and student body were there, packed into the pews like sardines. For the most part, Mass started like it normally would, but it didn’t feel that way. For one, the Saint Catherine girls had been brought down to Xavier by an Activity Bus they had rented from a small public high school nearby. Excessive measures for a measly 5 mile walk, but necessary, all things considered. The killer could still be out there.

Even _Stan_ was here, sandwiched between Bill and Richie and, at this point, personal space was but a word. There were, in fact, so many people packed into the church that they’d been forced to cram about 15 people onto benches that sat only 10. It didn’t seem like it was that bad, but when you were actually crammed in there, hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, it _was_ .

The Xavier chapel was fairly small to begin with, so much so that it barely sat all of its students in the first place, but add all the girls from Saint Catherine’s and a few extra staff members, and it started to feel more like a closet than an actual church. Whoever had designed it all those years ago probably hadn’t expected that this many people would inhabit the earth.

So, to say the very least, it was a _little_ uncomfortable.

On top of all that, Stan felt ridiculously out-of-place, especially since he had on his yarmulke. He probably could’ve skipped wearing it just this once to avoid attracting unwanted attention. He’d even gotten as far as to start to unclip it, but the pit of guilt that settled in his stomach brought his hands to back down to his side. He couldn’t do it.

With a rabbi for a father, Stan had grown up devoutly Jewish. He’d been reluctantly allowed (keyword: _reluctantly_ ) the opportunity to go to Xavier at twelve just like the other kids in his year. It had taken quite a bit of convincing both for his mother and the Diocese (his father, for a reason Stan could never really understand, had advocated his education at Xavier like it was all that mattered in the world), but he had eventually been accepted into the school despite his somewhat-contrasting religion.

Stan had never been in the chapel for an actual church service before now, only to sit with the others while they prayed their rosaries or for the Welcoming and Closing ceremonies. Otherwise, he wasted away the mornings his friends were at church either in the library catching up on work or sleeping in. Headmaster Morelli had been kind enough to allot him Saturdays for the Sabbath and time off for Jewish holidays.

Through some miracle (a miracle called Mike Hanlon), Stan and his friends had gotten seats beside each other. They'd fallen into order: Bill, Stan, Richie, Eddie, Bev, Ben, and Mike. They were shoulder-to-shoulder, but no one had the indecency to complain.

Not long after the mandatory missing report and subsequent discovery of the bodies, Headmaster Morelli had called Betty and Ed’s parents. They’d come up to the school upon hearing the news, distraught and upset with an unlying twinge of anger. Why hadn’t their children been better protected? The Mass service held for them was extremely last-minute, obviously done hastily to quell the rage their parents felt toward the staff, but it was nice nevertheless.

Old Joe had walked them in, led them down the aisle, one of his arms looped through the hook of Betty’s mom’s elbows. He’d ushered them into one of the pews at the very front— the ones beside the altar. The first three rows of benches were obviously for the ‘elite’ seeing as they had velvet seat cushions. Stan could now say that he understood why Richie was always bitching about back pain and knee pain after Mass.

Betty’s mom had been sobbing into her husband’s shoulder ever since they’d sat down, a ceaseless sound, and though it was somewhat muffled, it was still equally heart-wrenching. Stan had to admit that he was surprised a woman could have so many tears. She was probably nearing dehydration at this point.

Ed’s mom and his step-father were here as well, looking grim but mostly composed (better than Betty’s mom, at least). His little brother, Dorsey, was just the same, his head bowed sadly. Old Joe was sitting with them for whatever reason, and Stan took note of the fact that he had a hand on Dorsey's shoulder. He felt sorry for Dorsey, that much was obvious.

Stan hadn’t really known Betty and Ed very well, not like Richie or Eddie or, more specifically, _Bev_ had. Out of all of them, she was probably the most affected by what had happened. Her and Betty had been roommates since the 6th Grade, close friends and, more prominently, sole confidants, jointly suffocating within the walls of Saint Catherine Catholic Preparatory School. Neither had many female-friends there, all they really had was each other.

Not anymore, though.

But Bev wasn’t taking Betty’s death very well, anyone could see it. Hopefully, the detectives that had interrogated her earlier had too. Bev and Betty had been close before… _you know_ , and it hurt to see her struggle through it. Her mascara was smudged, and if she was going for that whole raccoon-look, she was definitely nailing it. She was chewing on her lips distractedly, looking at something on the far wall of the chapel. It was a painting of a shepherd and his flock.

 

_Bev quietly slipped back into her dormitory in the early hours of the morning. From what Richie made it sound like (and he was notoriously known to over-exaggerate), sneaking in and out of Saint Catherine’s wasn’t nearly as hard as sneaking in and out of Xavier’s. Bev, however, wanted to make sure that she didn’t wake up her roommate. She was still reeling from her midnight crusade with Richie, happy to see her friend again and to catch up on what everyone was doing over at Xavier’s. Not for the first time, she wished she could go there.  
_

_She slowly closed the door, taking extra care to make sure she wouldn’t wake Betty. The room was pitch black (there were no lampposts outside of her window), so she could only assume that Betty was in her bed. Bev was careful as she slipped off her coat and put her shoes away, working on muscle memory as she couldn’t see very well in the dark. It took her eyes several long moments to adjust. Only then did she look over to check on Betty._

_Except, she wasn’t there. Bev’s heart dropped. Betty had always been kind of a rule-follower, always careful to placate her teachers and, in turn, her strict parents. She was never out past curfew, not even on the long nights to where she had a bout of insomnia. She would partake in little pranks Bev pulled on the other girls, but always made she that she wasn’t caught. She was smart and quick-witted and always knew how to weasel her way out of bad situations. Ultimately, it was good that she knew how. If her parents found out that she had gotten herself into trouble, there’d be hell to pay._

_There was something unsettling about the fact that Betty was out past curfew, though, even later than Bev herself. It was_ one in the morning. _Bev barely registered what she was doing as she flipped on the desk lamp, allowing the dorm to fill with orangey-light. She looked frantically around the room for any sign of Betty. She found none. Betty’s bed was still meticulously made, with hospital-corners and everything. Nothing on her side of the dorm looked out of place. Everything was where it was supposed to be._

_Something had happened. Bev knew it._

_She shoved her coat back on and rammed her feet back into her saddle shoes, not having enough time to tie them as she flew out of the door and down the hallway. She didn’t care if she woke anyone up now, that was their problem, all she cared about was finding where the hell Betty was. The overseer for tonight was a little old lady in a dress that she’d obviously stitched herself. She was perched in the straight-backed chair that no one ever sat in, her legs propped up on its matching ottoman. She was knitting, though slowly and tiredly. She didn’t look up as Bev walked in, and only on the third ‘excuse me’ did she address her._

_“What is it, dear? It’s long past your curfew.”_

_“My roommate,” Bev croaked out, surprised to find herself practically illiterate and rendered almost unable to speak. “She’s gone.”_

_At Xavier-Catherine, there was a rule about missing kids. You didn’t have to be gone for 24 hours before a police report was filed. It was some weird preparatory school thing, diocese-approved and whatnot. As far as they were concerned, ‘they’ being the Diocese of New England Preparatory Schools, whoever had gone missing wasn’t far from campus. Initially, Betty’s disappearance had been considered a runaway case (to which Bev had fervently denied, saying that Betty would_ never _run away like that), so only a few police cars were sent in once the report was made. They swept the area; the campus, the surrounding forest._

_They found Betty, of course._

_And Ed Corcoran, too._

_Except, they’d been murdered._

_They had been too late._

Bev _had been too late._

 

She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. This whole thing was really getting to her, driving her insane. She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before, and she could only stand by and take it as her mental stability teetered on the edge of pure calm and insanity, but she just had to get through the rest of the day and she’d be just fine. She didn’t know how she felt about going back to her dorm, surrounded by all things _Betty_. It was a problem for her future-self. She’d put it off like she did with most things.

The shifting of bodies, the rustling of silk uniforms, told her it was time to stand for another song. She got up to stand with the others, straightening her uniform coat as she went. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ben looking at her. He was biting his lip, eyes clouded over. She gave him a thin-lipped smile to which he returned. She took note of the fact that it looked almost… _sad_. She looked away.

Stan was broken out of his thoughts when he felt an elbow dig into his side. “Hey, Stanley,” whispered a voice to his left: Bill, who was looking down at him pointedly and… wait, was he standing? _Shit,_ they were supposed to be standing. Eddie was giving him a strange look, his lips pursed to the side.

Shaking his head, Stan got up with the others, taking out that blue book thingy that everyone else was holding. _It was called a hymnal,_ his mind supplied him. The only thing on the cover of the book was the date that it was published: 1976.

As the first few notes of Amazing Grace started to play, a song that Stan had heard before in passing, he quickly flipped to the page that Bill was on. Only after the second verse had ended and the third one began did Stan finally look up from the music. His friends were mumble-singing (an art of which he had perfected in his early childhood).

Bev was the only one that wasn’t singing to some extent. Her eyes had found the painting of the shepherd again.

_THROUGH MANY DANGERS, TOILS, AND SNARES_

_WE HAVE ALREADY COME._

_T’WAS GRADE THAT BROUGHT US SAFE THUS FAR_

_AND GRACE WILL LEAD US HOME._

Richie, like Stan, had also seemed to notice Bev’s atypical behavior. He looked over at her and frowned. Straightening his glasses, he leaned over to Eddie and whispered, “Switch with me, will ya?” Eddie blinked up at him in question. The look on Richie’s face, however, silenced his knee-jerk defiance. He caught the way that Richie’s eyes were darting between him and Bev— that he was frowning. He did just as Richie had asked of him without complaint, shuffling over to stand beside Stan.

“Hey, Bev.” Richie put a warm hand on her shoulder, trying to catch her eyes. Upon feeling a pressure on her shoulder, she blinked up at him confusedly. “Do you wanna step out? It’s not like they can stop us.”

She nodded shakily.

Richie moved his hand down to the small of her back and led her out of the pew. As they passed Ben, Richie leaned over and whispered to him out of the corner of his mouth, “Come with us. It’ll look less suspicious.”

( _Yeah, yeah_ , there was an ulterior motive to asking Ben to come with them, but it wasn’t like Richie was planning to admitting it point-blank. They needed to get their shit together and, sure, it might not be the best time to do that, but if Richie knew anything about movies, it was that people almost always got together in unusual circumstances. If he had to make up an excuse to get them alone for a while, he’d do it without hesitation. It’s what friends are for… right?). 

Ben nodded with an almost timid ‘okay, sure’ as he shuffled alongside them.

They slipped out of the chapel essentially unnoticed. People in the congregation were freely crying now, fumbling their way through the latter part of Amazing Grace. Eddie watched them go, wondering if he should intervene. After a moment, he shrugged and turned back to his hymnal. Richie and Ben could handle it just fine.

  


As Richie led them down the church corridor and into the library, he wondered what would happen if they were caught. He wasn’t sure if he’d have to deal with Sister M again after what Old Joe had threatened her with (he still couldn’t believe that had happened), but he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if the investigators caught them skipping the service.

He couldn’t shake that guilty feeling he felt whenever he thought about what had happened in the woods. There was something unsettling about potentially seeing who’d done it. He couldn’t get the image of the anonymous cloaked figure out of his head. It was forever engrained.

The library in the church building was nothing like the one in the school building. It was small, meager, and nothing special, full of Bibles and other novels on religion (only on Christianity, of course). He’d been in here plenty of times, enough to know the exact location of the one book that didn’t belong— the Communist Manifesto. How it had gotten there, he had no fucking clue, but whoever had put it there had some serious balls. He remembered the day he’d found it like it was yesterday.

He’d taken choir in the 8th Grade because his dad forced him to do it ( _Easy A,_ he’d said, but at Xavier, that was anything but true unless you had the voice of an angel). They practiced here, in the church library, because no one ever used it and, for obvious reasons, it was loaded with hymnals. Their choir teacher, Sister Barbara, had stepped out of the room to speak with the organist.

The second the door clicked shut, the eleven other boys that also took choir started talking. Sighing, Richie leaned back in his chair (something he was apparently, according Sister Barbara, forbidden to do) to secretly spite her. His chair wobbled precariously on two legs, but he’d long since mastered the art of chair-balancing. As he tilted his head ever-so-slightly to the right, however, his eyes caught on a particular maroon book with a golden spine. Upon seeing it, reading the title, he’d fallen forward in his chair, choking on his own spit.

As he took Ben and Bev into the library, he wondered if he should check to make sure it was still there. If it was, he wouldn’t be surprised. It was rare that anyone ever came in here. Sighing, he slumped down into a worn, tufted leather couch beside the bookshelf that hopefully still housed the Communist Manifesto. He didn’t know much about Communism or Marxism or whatever it was called, but he did know that some people who believed in those ideologies still believed in God. Still, putting it in this school was unbearably ironic.

Beverly sat down on the couch beside him, though more gracefully than he had. She folded her arms and leaned all the way back, practically sinking in the cushioned leather. Ben settled down on her other side, playing nervously with his fingers. “Bev,” he said after a moment. Richie, for whatever reason, was surprisingly subdued. “Are you okay?”

She looked up at him, noting how he avoided her eyes, then shrugged off-handedly. “I’m fine, Ben, don’t worry about me.”

“We can’t _help_ that we’re worried, we… just are.”

“I just—“ She paused and took a moment to compile her thoughts. Then, she sighed. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.” Sucking in a sharp breath, her hands found the roots of her hair. She pulled on them, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. “If I have to think about for another minute, I’m gonna lose my _mind!_ ”

Ben mumbled a small ‘okay’ and nodded his head. Gently, he took one of her elbows and slowly guided her fingers out from her hair. Richie watched this dumbly, feeling like an invasion of privacy. He hadn’t really thought this whole Ben-and-Bev thing all the way through.

“What do you wanna talk about then?” Richie piped up, watching as they both looked over at him in surprise, having forgotten that he was even there. “Because I have plenty of topics for rainy days. Have you heard that one joke about the Italian chef and how—“

Beverly groaned. “Stop, Richie, _please._ You told me that one last week.”

“Well, Ben hasn’t—"

“Yeah, I have,” Ben cut him off, rolling his eyes. “You told me that one at lunch last Friday. He pasta way.”

“Damn,” Richie cursed, straightening his glasses. “That was a good one, too. Fucking hilarious.”

“ _No_ , it was one of the worst jokes you’ve ever told,” Bev said, raising her eyebrows.  “You probably read it in a comedy book for two-year-olds.”

“Actually, it was for ages three and up,” Richie quipped with a smirk.

Bev snorted, rolling her eyes. “God, you’re obnoxious.”

“ _No,_ I’m Richie.”

She socked him in the shoulder not nearly as hard as she wanted to. “Funny guy,” she grumbled underneath her breath.

“ _Ow_!” Richie howled over-dramatically, clutching his shoulder. “That’s assault! Hey, that reminds me of that one joke: what did Sodium Chloride say t—“

“Richie, stop!” Bev had to fight to keep a straight face.

“Or the one where the mushroom walks into the bar and sits down and orders a drink. So the bartender goes up to him and says ‘You have to go before you stink up the place’ and the mushroom goes, ‘Why? I’m a fun guy!’” Richie was laughing at himself now, a light-hearted and ridiculously contagious sound.

Ben started cracking up with him. His hearty chuckles were punctuated with deep breaths. Bev couldn’t hold back her own laughter anymore. It spilt out of her like a bursted dam, a never-ending stream of giggles. Richie’s jokes were so damn terrible and she was so damn tired that she just couldn’t help it. At this point, she was on the verge of complete delirium.

They sat there on that uncomfortable leather couch next the Communist Manifesto in the recent aftermath of a double-homicide involving two of their friends whilst a memorial service went on in the other room laughing their goddamn asses off. _Jesus_ , was life crazy?

They were gasping for breath by the time they were finished (this was after several failed attempts of almost stopping themselves only to keel over laughing once again). They were all delirious and sleep-deprived (Ben less so than the others), hyped up on the adrenaline of everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo I had to split the chapter in half so that I wouldn't have a 6000 word mess. The other half of the chapter should be up soon. Probably within the next few days, I'm thinking. Get ready for it, though. Trust me, it'll hurt.


	6. A Very Bad Day Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This literally isn't proof read at all. I'm hoping and praying that it reads alright.

The very moment Richie saw his friends walk out of the chapel, he jumped up onto his feet to greet them. He’d been outside bouncing his leg for the past ten minutes, waiting expectantly for the service to get out. If he went strolling down the aisle and back into his seat with only ten minutes left, he was bound to raise suspicion, so he waited until it ended. In truth, he was raising suspicion regardless. The second he’d walked out of the chapel with Ben and Bev during Amazing Grace was the second that he’d set off a few red flags. He hoped that someone could vouch for him. He’d only left to help Bev. It was what friends do.  
  
Since she had been so tired, running on literally 0 hours of sleep, he’d been able to convince Bev to take a nap in Ben’s dorm until her bus left, leaving the two of them alone for a little while. It hadn’t exactly been his plan, but it would do.  
  
Richie trailed behind his friends as they marched out onto the front lawn. They’d been trying to evade the long line of people waiting to say their condolences to Betty and Ed’s families. They’d pay their respects once the line thinned out a little bit. “What’d you think of the service, Stan the Man? Was everyone crying?”

Scoffing, Bill socked him in the shoulder. “Insensitive jerk,” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. Mike sent them each a warning look, breaking up the potential argument.

Richie held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, I know that was low. Don’t attack me.” He swaggered up to Eddie and slung an arm around his shoulders. He half-expected to be shoved off. He was surprised when he wasn’t. “How’d you fare, Spaghetti? Your knees hurt?”

Eddie sighed, ignoring the nickname in favor of his disbelief. “I’m getting déjà vu. Your fake-fainting ruse was _definitely_ not yesterday.” Shaking his head, he grumbled, “All because of your damn knees.” He was evidently still sour over it.

A deep frown came in to replace Mike’s smile-lines. “But it was. It’s crazy how much has changed in 24 hours.”

Stan nodded slowly, his lips pursed to the side. “24 hours ago Betty and Ed were still alive.”

“ _Geez,_ Stanley, do you always have to state the morbidly obvious?” Bill raised his eyebrows. The corners of his lips quirked upward.

Stan said nothing, opting instead to roll his eyes for probably the fifth time that day.

“He can’t help it.” Richie half-shrugged. Eddie still had yet to push him off. A new record, probably. “He’s a realist.”

“You know me _so_ well, Richie,” Stan deadpanned. “I’m honored.”

Old Joe limped up to them then, wearing an expression no one had ever seen on him before. It was an indescribable sort of look, one you couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason behind. From a distance, it looked like a mix been sympathy and sobriety. He’d been talking to one of the police officers, informed by Morelli to tell him to bring Eddie Kaspbrak up to his office.

“Kaspbrak?” Joe said, sounding small and meager— two things he most definitely wasn’t. Eddie’s head shot up at the sound of his name, a foggy look passing through his eyes. He’d obviously been elsewhere... mentally, that is. Richie let him go, taking a step back. “The headmaster wants to see you in his office. It might be a bit personal, but you can bring a friend.” He paused for a moment, then suggested, “How about you bring Tozier?”

Richie merely blinked in response. _What?_

Eddie nodded wordlessly, looking over to Richie for confirmation. After a confused bob of his head, Richie found himself being dragged across the lawn by his wrist as his shorter friend pulled him into the administration building. Eddie had either forgotten to let go of Richie or was holding onto him intentionally for whatever reason. His hand was slick with sweat.  
  
“What’s going _on?_ ” Richie couldn’t tell if he was being spoken to or not. He kept his mouth shut and let Eddie drag him up the stairs. He didn’t know if he could pry Eddie’s hand off even if he wanted to, that little bugger was so fucking strong.

Eddie’s first thought when Old Joe had told him that Morelli wanted to see him was his mother. Had she somehow already found out about what had happened? Why was he allowed to take Richie? His mom despised Richie, and surely she would want to see him alone if she was planning on unenrolling him. No matter how hard he wracked his brain, he couldn’t think of a plausible reason to be called into Morelli’s office like this. _Sure_ , there was the investigation into Richie and Bev, but that didn’t involve him, did it?

He wasn’t left with very much time to think this over— to let his thoughts fester— as they’d already rounded the corner of Headmaster Morelli’s office. It was only then, feeling Richie’s drag behind him, that he realized that he was still holding onto his wrist. He let go quickly, mumbling a short apology.

Just as Eddie lifted his fist to knock on the door, Richie stopped him with a hushed, urgent, “Wait!” He held his hands out in front of him, his eyes wild and desperate. He couldn’t let Eddie go in without an explanation.

Eddie turned around, brows raised expectantly. His fist was still poised over the door, wavering slightly as he looked back at Richie. “What is it? This better be—“

“I said your name,” Richie blurted out. No context, of course, just words.

“You… what?” Eddie shook his head. He had absolutely no clue what Richie was on about. He let his hand fall back down to his side with a sigh.

Richie took a breath and tried to make sense of himself. “I said your name in the interrogation. I didn’t mean to. I said that you might know if Ed Corcoran went to track practice, that’s all. I mean, I could’ve said _Ben’s_ name, but I said yours. I don’t know why, I w—”

“ _So_?” What did that have to do with anything?  
  
“It just—“ Richie cut himself off with a sigh, rubbing his eyes from underneath his glasses. “It was making me feel guilty. I needed to tell you, Eds, especially if this thing with Morelli is about that.”

“Wouldn’t Morelli have handed the case over to the police the second he reported them missing? I mean, the police interrogated Bev. Where even is she?” So many questions, most of them with answers neither of them definitively knew. 

The one that Richie knew the answer to was the one that he was most proud of. Wiggling his eyebrows, he explained, “With Ben in the dorms so she can take a nap. I sent them up there. T’was my master plan o’ master plans.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, his lips quirking ever-so-slightly upward. With a nervous, trembling sigh, he rapped on the Headmaster’s door three times. Customary, as always. The number three, that is.

A voice came from inside. _Morelli._ “Who is it?”

“Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier, sir,” Eddie replied in a voice that was surprisingly curt and dignified seeing as he was literally shaking from nerves. His voice oozed confidence, but his body-language gave him away. He was thankful that Morelli couldn’t see him now. “Brother Josiah told us to stop by your office.”

A rusting sound, then… “Come in!”

Eddie heaved in a breath as he tentatively pushed open the door and stepped inside, Richie following close at his heels. The door clicked shut behind them.

Morelli was there, sitting at his desk. His suit was wrinkled, his tie knotted loose around his neck. His shiny bald head was particularly shiny… this time with sweat. A police officer in uniform stood off to the side, pulling out books from Morelli’s shelves and flipping lazily through them. Another officer dug through the filing cabinet, pulling out files and briefly looking over them.

“Could you give us a moment, officers?” Morelli looked over at the one beside the filing cabinet, giving him an imploring look. “For the boy’s sake?” Sweat glistened on his bald forehead. The banker lamp on the far wall flickered once.

File Guy nodded curtly. He motioned for his fellow officer to follow him outside with a strange two-fingered gesture. They swaggered out of the room without a word. The door clicked shut behind them.

Morelli looked over at Richie and Eddie with a canned smile. “‘Apologies for that, boys. They seem to think the culprit either goes or works here. I told them no one at Xavier or Saint Catherine would ever do such a thing.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you sit down, both of you?” It wasn’t much of a question. It was a direct order worded in such a way that it compelled them to listen. He pointed at the two leather seats in front of his desk. His hand was shaking.

Richie eyed Morelli skeptically as he lowered himself into the seat to the left of the desk. Eddie sat down in the other chair, making sure to keep his posture impeccable. Morelli’s office scared the shit out of him. It was dark, drab, and it smelled, for some reason, like cow manure and damp books. He picked at the skin around his thumb.

Morelli leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands on his desk. He addressed them both with a calculated stare. “I don’t see the point in keeping you for any longer than I must. I’m sure you both are hungry and tired. You especially, Tozier, I’ve heard your story.”

Richie squirmed in his seat. Was he about to be punished? “I—”

Morelli’s hand shot up to silence him. “Don’t interrupt me until I’m finished talking, Tozier,” he snapped. The entire mood of the room changed. Richie sank back down into his chair, shutting up. Morelli went on as if nothing had happened, “I don’t see the need for any preamble. I wouldn’t ask for the same thing if I was the receiver of such news. Mr. Kaspbrak,” he looked at Eddie square in the face. “There’s been an accident.”

A phrase like that was one that Eddie had only ever heard in movies. It sounded stifled and rehearsed, never something he’d expected to actually hear in real life. His hearing swam in and out like the rise and fall of a wave. “… Your mother… on her way here.. heart attack… crashed her car… _She’s passed away_ …”

_She’s passed away. She’s passed away. She’s passed away._

Another phrase he thought he’d never hear. He’d known that his ma was going to die eventually, probably before he did himself, but he’d never expected to have to hear those words from someone. He’d always expected to hear them from a nurse or a doctor. ‘She didn’t make it, sir’ they would say softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. The words ‘She’s passed away’, however, were the ones that he’d never anticipated.

It was honest.

And it was true.

“Mr. Kaspbrak… are you alright?”

Eddie couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t thi— _Shit_ , where was his aspirator? He was choking on his breath by the time he found it, wedged in his front pocket. He usually never carried it, but this morning when he’d heard the sirens, he’d stuffed it into his pants pocket just to be safe. He was thankful that he’d thought to bring it. Sure, he knew he didn’t actually have asthma, but he couldn’t _breathe._

“Eddie?” Richie's voice. Far away. “Eds?”

He took a trembling puff from it, blasting off. His vision, like his ears, swam in and out. Familiar black dots formed in his peripheral. His breath whistled in and out.

He felt the ghost of a touch on his hand. _Richie_. It was gone as quick as it had come.

After a moment, when he was finally able to even out his breathing enough to be able to formulate words, he asked the first question that came to his mind. “Her car,” he croaked. “Is it salvagable?”

Morelli fixed him with a strange look. “I’m not sure. You can ask one of the officers if you’d like.” He paused for a moment to clear his throat, then he went on, “Your mother only put herself as your emergency contact when she enrolled you. What about your father?”

Usually, when people asked him about his father without knowing what had happened to him too it felt like a sucker-punch to the heart. At this moment, though, he was numb to the pain. “He’s dead, too.”

For whatever reason, after he’d said this, his eyes moved over to Richie. He was staring right back at him. His expression was unreadable. His face was pale, even more so than usual. His freckles stood out like droplets of blood on clothing, sunk into his skin. Eddie could see himself in the reflection of Richie’s glasses. He looked away.

Morelli was still sweating profusely as he fumbled out his response, “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have any relatives willing to take care of you then?”

Eddie shook his head. _Not unless you count my crazy aunts_. “Will I be able to stay here? My mom paid for the whole year, didn’t she? I’ll graduate?”  
  
“I’m not even sure if the school will stay open,” Morelli admitted, swiping at his forehead. “What, with everything that’s happened.”

Richie spoke up for the first time in several long minutes. “It _has_ to stay open, Eddie won’t ha—”

“Tozier, this doesn’t pertain to y—”  
  
“But it does!” Upon catching the sharp look Morelli gave him for interrupting him, he added quickly, “ _Sir..._ ” He took a breath. “We _have_ to graduate!”

Morelli sighed. He said nothing for a moment, massaging his temples. “I don’t know what the police officers want me to do. They’ll tell me if I have to close the school. More likely than not, though, they’ll keep it open. From what I was told, they think that whoever did it either works or goes here. They don’t want to scare them off. They’ll just come back once the school reopens and kill again.”

“So they’re just waiting for someone else to die so they can narrow down their search?” Richie couldn’t believe it. “That’s inhumane!”

“The only real lead they have is your witness report. They’re considering calling in the FBI.”

Richie was fidgeting in his seat. “What if what I saw was nothing to go on? I mean, it could’ve really been my imagination like I thought. I just gave it because I thought that it might do some good.”

“The robes, they suggest religious or anti-religious intent. At a Catholic school, I see no reason why the FBI shouldn’t be involved in this. Not even the state police can handle this.”

Hold on a second… state police? Morelli had said that Mrs. K had been driving up to the school when she had her heart attack. She must have known about the murders, but how? “This wasn’t broadcasted, was it? The news wasn’t here?” He felt like he already knew the answer, but he couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t seen any news trucks around.  
  
“We sent them away for the Mass,” Morelli explained. “It was only broadcasted on channels in Maine, though. If the FBI gets involved, it’ll probably make regional, then national news.”

Eddie nodded slowly. It was all starting to make sense. “It was how my mom found out about what had happened. It was what worried her enough to take the backroad down here.”

Morelli rubbed his sweaty hands off on a handkerchief. “We can only assume so…” he trailed off uncertainly. This wasn’t how he expected Eddie to react, that’s for sure. He’d expected a few tears, a snotty and predictable response, but this kid kept his composure (if you didn’t count the asthma thing).

Eddie suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. _He_ had been the reason that his mom had died. She had come up to the school for _him_ . He needed to get out of this stuffy office before he flipped his shit. “Can I be excused, sir?” he croaked out. He could feel Richie’s eyes on the side of his face.  
  
“Wh— Yes, of course,” Morelli sputtered. “Take Tozier with you.”


End file.
